E3 - Sony Conference

http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3live.html

Currently watching it, all I can say is....how the hell can the average consumer afford such a machine?

I mean, it can play CD/DVD & Blu-Ray, so I'm assuming there's two disc drives, it's got the 8 cell processors, the built-in HDD (space size unknown), all the other bells & whistles......Sony would have to lose themselved alot of money to make it purchasable for majority of us.
(more-so then Microsoft and their Xbox...)

Also sucks for me that the Final Fantasy franchise is continuing on that system too. ;/


Anyhow, still seems Sony thinks more power = more fun, still doesn't mean jack when the gameplay is crap.

Appears their "XBX-Live" ripoff is provided free to the users, wonder what Microsoft will think of that if it manages to be just as good as Live!


Hmm.....PS1 emulator for PSP, sounds nice, now if only I had a mem. card of >1gb size.
Appears they ditched the banana controller design in favour of a recolored looking Dual-Shock2 with a bulgy circle thingy in the middle.

Really not impressed with the game demo's they're displaying either, they're just prettied up versions of existing games, with the same problems.
(especially in the camera angle department...)


Screw the edit tags, just going to keep adding to this...

Appears EA's got some nice stuff up their sleeve, mostly interested in that U-CAP (or however it's acronymed) hardware, the Tony Woods demo they had running was incredibly life-like looking, especially in the way the model was animated, I mean, daaaaaaaaamn, I dont normally gawk, but jeez, it makes the lip-sync/facials in Half-Life2 look old.

[EDIT] Screw it....

Looks like Sony ripped off Nintendo, their controller has a built in motion-sensor of 6-degrees of freedom......I cursed pretty damn loudly when I saw this, all it means now is all the Rev has above the PS3 hardware wise is a cheaper system, and still, the pointing thing, along with the usual Nintendo franchises.... /sigh.

[EDIT2]

$499 for PS3 w/ 20gb HD
$599 for PS3 w/ 60gb HD..........

Can you say ouch?

The 60gb PS3 also translates to $666 in Canadian dollars, coincidence?

[EDIT3]

Well that's the end of the conference I've seen, all I can say is, not really impressed here aside from U-CAP, been thinking about the ripped off idea regarding the controller, and to me, it appears it wont be used in the same way the Rev will, there's no way you can get good precision holding an object with two hands tilting the device, so it appears the Wii Remote will still reign supreme with that system.

More likely, it has one drive with two laser/lens assemblies.

CD/DVD and BluRay use the same sized discs, just different lazors, so there would be one drive, with two heads.


Lol. =]

$500 to $600? Um, yep, definitely not getting it now. Better to just put that money towards a PC. At least I can develop for them without shelling out thousands of dollars for a development kit.

Yeah ... I'll pass on a PSiii and get a Wii ;)

yeah - what Noel said!

...and they don't have...



do they ??? Lol


Wii ROCKS!

IPete2.

lol, thats exactly what I don't like about Wii, all the jumping about and looking like a t**t even by yourself isn't my idea of fun, but its still a cool idea.

*laughing* How many minutes will it take till this is broken if you're having a hot fight?!

That's not a real controller is it? :)

Only one processor with 7 cores.


It was Nintendo's fault for revealing their plans so early... the evolution of technology is based upon plagarism, and as Nintendo don't own the patent for this - everyone can make their own system.

But really .. who cares?

I've just watched some game videos on gametrailers.com and i think the graphics of the ps3 are quite impressive. By the way the psp version of lemmings looked great. Well, we'll see...

From what I've heard Sony's controller can sense acceleration in 3 axes, but it doesn't have the fine control which the Nintendo controller does.

Now if only that sword controller thingy had force feedback or some way of feeling like you are cleaving things/working against resistance. May as well go and join a medieval reenactment group if you want that - photorealistic suits of chain mail then...

The price for the console is too high. Looks like MS might actually win this round (or Nintendo hopefully)

Do we really know how sensitive the Wii controller is? All I've seen is the videos of people waving it around, and no actual controller/screen movement relationship whatsoever..

anyone know what technology Nintendo uses for their Wii controller?

I think the ninty controler is better considered, and if you can use a regular controler in its stead, will prove the most dynamic for odd games.

I've no doubt that nintendo will do well this time, they may end up being everyones backup system that doesn't get used so much, but the novelty of the controler will attract a lot of people. If I'm interested in messing with one just to see what its like, then it's going to do well.

I have no love for nintendo games whatsoever, so a good sign for them there :)

It probably comes down to the games and the controller. If the controller of the nintendo console is really good and there also is some good content which makes fancy use of it then they might do well. I also like that the nintendo should be a quiet system.

But honestly i strongly doubt that they will come close or even beat sony. If the ps3 isn't the buggiest, loudest crap in the world then i guess they still will sell a lot more units. Having alone Final Fantasy XIII as an exclusive title pulls a lot of gamers. And for the price: a) prices drop and b) if you compare how expensive pure blueray-players will be then the ps3 isn't expensive at all...

> b) if you compare how expensive pure blueray-players will be then the ps3 isn't expensive at all

The big thing is perceived value, I'm not going to be buying any blue ray movies any time soon, so a blue ray versus a regular old DVD is no difference. Same thing with betamax back in the old days, although the picture was better hardly anyone bought it since the picture was not that much better to make it worth the price difference. (I did buy a used betamax cheap though, well worth it then)

Well, you don't want to and i also don't want to but there are a lot of others who might want to buy blueray movies or only think they want...the masses rule this buisness...

For me personally it comes down to the content. Which console offers the games i want to play? I've never bought a console for a tv before but this time i'll look into maybe buying a ps3 or a wii(are two ii's correct?)...

I prefered it when consoles just played games, and nothing else.

No, there's only one 'i' in Revolution taumel ;)

Hear hear!

Wasn't this Prince and the ... once ;O)

Least Nintendo is taking that route.
(although the Wii can play DVD movies by mean of a purchasable dongel to get access to that part of the system, but it's only there for those who dont have a DVD player already imo)



Ah, I recalled see'ing a pic of a BluRay disc long ago and it looked way different then the norm disc (was a smaller CD inside of a squared disc-holder thinger, in the size of a usual floppy disc I believe), guess I was looking at something else and confused the two.

Been also thinking though, if Sony went out of their way to steal some of the tricks from Nintendo's controller, that goes to say that Sony is saying that "Nintendo is right" no? I recall all the laughter & shit Nintendo that was thrown at them when they first mentioned the Wiimote (the Wii remote, geddit?) and that is was waste, well, it must have been inspiring enough for Sony to take some of that away from them.



That may have explained the awful steering on this one airship demo this developer was displaying using the system, but that could have just been a problem with not enough fine-tuning of the control-code in the demo. ;/

Is the PS3 doesn't take the power supply equivelent of an HDTV like the 360 does, I may consider purchasing one in the future when the price drops $300 or so, long after I've had fun with my Wii.


Anyhow, I believe Microsoft is having their conference tonight, so I'll be staying tune to that tonight as well.
(via the same GameSpot link posted above)

Editors from Gamespot.com tried the controller at E3, and said it "feels surprisingly tight and easy to use. Flying the plane by tilting the controller is very intuitive."
They concluded with "the controller feels pretty nice and already seems to work well."

Ref: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6149586.html

I'm mostly interested in 360 gamewise, has all the ones I like. The nintendo controler, and the PC overall

That sounds like a mini-disc, not BluRay. mini-disc is another format sony created, but it never caught on with the mainstream and kind of fizzled out.

BluRay has the exact same size and shape disc as a CD, DVD or HD-DVD... only difference between all of these is that the color may look a little different.

actually... he was probably looking at the UMD format.

Yeah def sounds like a UMD - personally i don't have much confidence in any Sony format - with their track history of failures...

dunno... I'm backing blu-ray this time... I think it's gonna be the one.

Nope, it was something like the mini-disc as xlsior mentioned, but I dont recall it being exactly that....

Anyhow, just finished watching the Nintendo conference, and all I can say is, how many more $#&*ing secrets does Nintendo still keep hidden about the Wii? Man, the fact the Nunchuk extension to the remote has it's own built-in sensor, and the fact the remote itself has a built-in speaker......

I can't say I'm that impressed with the game lineup, on any format.

Thanks god Banana pad has gone on the PS3, I like the way Sony have nicked some of the best core ideas from the Nintendo Piss controller but have opted to leave out the stupid things like the dumb TV remote look. Thankgod they saw sense and finally kept the almost flawless design of the original PS pad.

Expect Sony to clear up one again I feel.

I heard the C64GS may be making a come back this year!!

64 Kb RAM and 20 Kb ROM, and still better than a 60 Gb harddisk playstation!

I just noticed something funny on the Wikipedia page linked to above.... the c64gs image is as large as half the amount of RAM on the computer itself. That just goes to show what evil times we live in. ;)

Another 'optical' floppy-sized media (which failed pretty majorly) was the Floptical: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floptical
(basically a floppy, but using optical tracking to allow the tracks to be much closer together than with a standard floppy, giving you 21MB instead of 1.44)

And sony's spin-off, the HiFD.

Man, that floptical would've been really useful in the late nineties on PC! It's surprising that even with Floppy Drives still being used in every PC made that they didn't put them.
Nothing much fits on 1.44mb anymore.

heh didn't know PC's still came with floppy drives. I built my last two puters and didn't bother with one.

Yep....why bother when USB JumpDrives are all the more common/cheap?
(not to mention hold a shitload more space)

Btw, it appears that *was* the BluRay disc I saw long ago : http://www.attentionmedia.se/swe/images/dvd/bluray.jpg
http://www.biohemma.nu/bilder/Blandat/bluray-disc.jpg

Guess they just ditched the plastic cover thing?

I find it increasingly depressing that software publishers are pushing hardware developers for more and more power, and missing the point.

How many times have you played a new game and though, nice graphics shame about the game play.

With the 360 comming out earlier and dispite its poor showing of game variety, will probably become the market leader for that generation of consoles

If it manages the same again for the generation after, we're going to end up with MS having a strangle hold on consoles and "real" computers too...

then it *really* will be nice graphics shame about the gameplay...

Many of the budget computers don't have one, and they are definitely on their way out.
Intel's roadmap is slated to remove the floppy drive connector from their chipset/motherboards in the near future, just to name one.

However, there *are* situations where a floppy is absolutely necesary. Try installing a retail XP CD on a computer with a SATA harddrive (which is standard in any/most of the newer PC's, especially high-end ones)
XP does not include the SATA drivers by default. During the installation of the OS, you'll need to supply the drivers. Lo and behold, windows XP (and 2000 and NT) will *only* read drivers from a floppy. Not from a CD. Not from a thumbdrive. Not from <insert fantastic floppy replacement here>. ONLY floppy.
Don't have one? Too bad, not gonna happen...

(Unless you hack your own XP installation CD and slipstream the manufacturer's SATA drivers onto it)

Another one: try doing a BIOS update on your computer. Many require you to boot from a floppy to do so.

Hmm, last Gen Microsoft published many of the better games for Xbox. Between MS and Bioware I got to play some of my favourite games ever on a console, and normaly console games are too shallow and overly simplistic for my tastes.

I don't know how I can be thinking this, but that screenshot of Metroid 3 appears to have about the same graphics quality as Metroid Prime on the DS.

If they're still out to pimp the gameplay over graphics thing, I think it's time to slow down... graphics are nice, too :P


It's interesting how low of a price Nintendo has managed to pull off so far, though.
I wonder if they have time for some last-second hardware improvements...


Still some cool stuff that they're pulling off.
The speaker on controllers is a pretty nice idea, and I hope it comes out nice and clear because it would definietly add to the feel and immersion of games if done properly.

It's impressive that Nintendo did their thing in the Kodak theatre... a definite sign of coolness.


As for Sony, I'm not hugely impressed. It's a shame that XBox would end up likely blasting them out of the water, since Sony has published some really good games in the past, but it looks like they have been taken over by a gaggle of babbling apes... those days may be coming to an end.
I still think the thing is too big (Look at the E3 videos... I swear, the PS3's the size of his chest!). Sure, my PC is bigger, but at least I can stack stuff on top of it. The PS3 looks like it is designed to sit in the center of somebody's living room so that everyone is staring right at it.

Way too expensive, too.
You can get a decent (useable and fully upgradeable) PC for that same amount of money... and you won't be in fear of Sony jumping ship because of their foolish marketing strategy. (If you can call it that).

Some nice looking titles, though. FF 13 looks amazing... perhaps a system seller along with MGS 4 (crazy trailer!) if they're lucky.


Microsoft... well... looks like the Halo obsession is rolling back in.
Lord Capo (aka: Master Chief) looks more and more like a Transformer, and their wonderful pre-rendered sequence will once again attract ridiculous ammounts of attention to conceal how they have Nothing Else to Show.
Did anyone notice that the music in there didn't at all blend with the voice? The narration sounds like it should be a really cool, eerie trailer... but the music is all jumpy and happy.
...Like they did it overnight or something ;)


Edit:
Upon watching a few videos, I am going to blame the above comments on Nintendo's reversed graphics evolution on either crappy screenshots... or maybe I actually WAS looking at Metroid on DS :P
It still looks great -- we don't really need to get much more than that for now, with the refreshingly unrealistic approach that Nintendo tends to do.

I think that the shape of the PS3 controller limits the usefulness of the motion sensing capability significantly. A nice aspect of the Wiimote is that it can be held in several different ways, including both one and two-handed positions. This means that you can actually hold it like the device being simulated, be it a steering wheel, bow, sword, racket, toy plane etc. This aspect is further emphasised by sound and rumble capabilities in the Wiimote which the PS3 controller doesn't have.

they took out the rumble and blamed it on the sensitivity of the motion sensors. It's probably those intellisense people who's patent they infringed that is the real cause though.

I'm surprised that Aurora isn't around evangelising the Sony hype :)

Wouldn't rumble and motion sensing be sort of a good thing?

I, for one, would find it kind of cool if the imprecise fire of a weapon on screen (just a handy example!) was caused by it shaking around in my hands as opposed to just some arbitrary number that a few programmers pulled out of there... asses. (Hmm).

Silly Sony :P

The price is just a smokescreen for making controversy. They made it high so they can drop it down just before the systems release and make it look like they're doing us a favor. They did the same thing with the PS2. I'm glad they kept the dual shock design though, and they system is going to be region free (imports!).

Meh.

Either way, I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a PS3 - granted, a year or two after release once it gets affordable. The only other machine's games that interest me are on the XBox variants (orig & 360), but with my back catalogue of PS1 and PS2 games and lack of reason to change, I'm unlikely to start again from scratch with a new family of systems.

I like to take it all at face value, and leave the evangelism and over-analysis to those more enthusiastic and vocal. Makes for a decent forum thread or two, if nothing else. :o)

It's been said to be the equivelent quality of that of a DS speaker, so I assume you will be able to hear the volume of it long as you dont have a 5.1 system blasting.

GameSpot also finally released their hands-on with the WiiMote, bit sad to hear that it uses 2 AA, hope they opt for a rechargable battery pack in the final build, would spare us the hassle of obtaining/maintaining a set of good batteries.

I really believe that the speaker may be the rumble-features' best friend, since you'll be hearing anything nearby on the speaker that would cause the controller to rumble in the first place.
(well, depending on whether or not the developer does so)

The fact the rumble also adds in a bit of a recoil to aiming will liven up the FPS experiance for me, unsure how that'd work for other game genre's though.

And yeah, Sonys excuse for no rumble was pretty stupid...I mean, damn, who do they think they ar..e.....dont answer that.

I bought the PS2 on the day of release. I promised it to myself as a belated 21st bday present. Plus I just wanted to have something before everyone else at least once in my life ;]

So I don't need to do that again. I'll be getting the PS3 when it hits $200, or when FF13 (eek) comes out, whichever is sooner =]

I'll just wait around till the ps3 is cheaper... then I'll get my FF13 and 14 and whatever else comes out by then... ... Honestly... the only reason I still have my Ps2 is because of square... I own no PS games by any other company.

I'll be getting a rev, without a doubt now that I can play zelda with a realistic sword play function...

LARP in the home!

That picture's worthy of a ban as much as posting goaste man.

Hey, for all you know that *is* goatse man.

Well, at least you only see his front this time.

here's another vid for you console fanatics... PS3 at E3... in case you missed it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zQSWOTS3Gw

--Mike

I got most impressed by these:

Alan Wake for PC/xbox360 - i'm wating for this.
FFXIII for PS3 - great look.
And the tennis game with Miyamoto for the W i i (hey you i stay where you're supposed to be!)

Beside of these there were so many good looking games...Crysis, Bioshock, Gears of War (man this looked brutal),...

Wow, now I've looked at a lot of the E3 stuff and I can say my view is completely different this year from last. The PS3 doesn't seem to be offering anything I'm interested in ... at least not for $500 or $600. I'm more excited by the Wii as far as hardware goes and I'm more excited by the games on Wii, 360, and PC than I am by anything on PS3. I think Sony's finally going down from the number 1 spot. Too expensive and nothing that screams must have.

If you ask me, Microsoft securing a deal with Rockstar to make GTA4 a 1yr exclusive to the 360 was a damn good move from a business perspective, that will hurt PS3 sales quite a bit when it comes out, I know quite a few people who just bought a PS2 *just* for the GTA series.

Did MS get a 1 Year exclusive? I read that the game would come out simultaneously for both platforms. Well hell yeah MS!

Looks like I got something mixed up in the process, apparently it'll be released simultaneously as you mentioned : http://www.gamespot.com/news/6149747.html


As far as E3 goes, it appears Nintendo is hogging all the attention so far, it really came as a surprise to me how many 3rd-party devs are actually in the process of creating/finishing up their projects, we may actually get more then just 1st-title parties released with a Nintendo system for once.

Also glad I cant attend E3, look how damn long those lines are!.

It also appears Nintendo's got a Zapper shell ready for the Wiimote.

Now, where the hell is my Die by the Sword2 game?
(for those who never played first, it's one of the very, very few games that allowed free control over a wieldable sword, which was done via the mouse, and it has some hilarious {althought unbalanced} moments in multiplayer deathmatch, for example, chop your opponents leg off, then pick it up and whack him with it)

[EDIT] Should have just named the topic "E3 conferences", seems to have turned away from the PS3, prolly my fault. ;P

> I'm glad they kept the dual shock design though,
> and they system is going to be region free (imports!).

Wow really is that true? Best idea ever, every system should be region free, for a start I want to need to get every single machine I buy chipped! :D