PS3 is piling up on the shelves

Yeah I noticed this as well, I'm also on the East Coast. Honestly, it doesn't surprise me. The Wii is grand fun for everyone and the PS3 is just more of the same for MORE money. It's funny that Kaz Hirai tried to defend the PS3 by making it sound like Nintendo didn't push the envelope just because they didn't do anything technically amazing with their graphics or storage medium.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12332

Obviously, though the end user looks at Wii and thinks it's much more amazing than the PS3 because the user interface pushed the envelope. It's just the nature of things ... you can only go so far in one direction before it becomes boring. Sony just crossed that line, while Nintendo started a party on a block no one knew existed.

EdzUp[SD]

TBH new consoles are waay overpriced, people are waiting for a few months till they knock loads of money off the top like they usually do.

yeah, the wii is cheap and cheerful with a lot of novelty value. Even if the games generaly aren't very good themselves the controller makes up for that for the time being.

The PS3 would sell a lot better if it was $200 cheaper
i'm sure. It's just not good value for money, especialy with so few games worth playing on it.

Apparently the 360 is breakimg even now with one SKU making a small profit and the other a loss ammounting to about $5 which is pretty cool and might mean that the packages might change in coming months.

dynaman

> Apparently the 360 is breakimg even now with one SKU making a small profit and the other a loss ammounting to about $5

And that $5 will be made up with the first purchase of any game.

We have a 360 and are waiting for the Wii to arrive. PS3 is not on the list yet.

Tri|Ga|De

Ithink PS3 will have success in the end.

Mark Tiffany

I read some analysts report (possibly Gartner?) that reckoned PS3 would not sell more than the other consoles in either 2007 or 2008. However, by 2010, it would have a bigger installed base overall. i.e. it will win, but it'll take it's time getting there.

But then, by that time, won't xbox1080 and the wiiii will be out?

Well, I was on a PS3 kick for a bit. Luckily I didn't have the money to get one; I'd be suffering buyers remorse.

2x Blu-ray drive? Blech. Can you say "load times?"

No rumble/force feedback in Sony peripherals. I wonder how many games will go to the trouble to even include rumble/force feedback knowing that most won't experience it.

Outdated controller design. The ergonomics of the Dual Shock were nice like 5 years ago, now - not so much.

Blu-Ray reportedly has worse video quality at the moment. I can only assume this is a codec issue (and possibly a licensing issue for said codec?)

While I am intrigued by the Cell and it's possibilities, I'm really starting to doubt that it's going to be superior to the X360 architecture in any significant (i.e. noticeable) way. I've been reading more about the drawbacks and difficulties of developing for the Cell. I don't envy those programmers at all.

I don't think Sony or Nintendo will even come close to rivalling Xbox Live.

If the new X360 ( http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/01/08/xbox_360_20_vista_and_iptv_at_ces.html ) does indeed have a 120gb hd and HDMI, and doesn't raise the price - the advantages of the PS3 will shrink even further.

The integration of IPTV into the 360 is looking nice.

#10

Everyone knows that the Wiis are constantly restocking every week, hence why people are constantly comming back to check. Not too many know about the recent shipment of PS3s. They still have a TON of preorders (from last year) left to fill for the Wii. Plus the Wii's pricing is more attractive. However, I still can't find either system anywhere locally.

2x Blu-ray drive? Blech. Can you say "load times?"

Yah, I was shocked to hear that. But ironically, the PS3 still seems to load games faster than the 360.

does indeed have a 120gb hd and HDMI, and doesn't raise the price

too bad for us who already got the current 360 though....not sure what their intentions with that one is. Wonder how they going to compensate current owners, or would we have to go and buy the newer 360s?

I'm not going to knock on the PS3 yet since from my past experience, the PS3 (aside from the current lack of games) felt more superior than my 360. And if history repeats itself(which it looks like it will since Sony was in the exact same position when the PS2 launched), Sony will somehow end up dominating again anwyays.

EdzUp[SD]

#11

They will only dominate the market as long as M$ keeps pouring money into the XBox hole, there are still loads of people that are wary of M$.

I for one would by a Wii if I had the money possibly a PS3 if it had backwards compatibility but not a 360.

#12

This isn't a knock on you personally but I just don't understand why current 360 owners feel that they should be 'compensated' in some way should a new and improved 360 come out. You knew what you were paying for when you bought it. Times change and prices drop. You don't expect to be compensated when GM, Honda or some other car company releases a new year model car, do you?

Early adopters pay more to get the right to enjoy the technology earlier & longer than others. Should they really be entitled to the benefits of early adoption without the drawbacks?

It would be nice if Microsoft offered a small discount though to current 360 owners should they purchase the larger hard drive or a converter cable (if one becomes available.)

#13

They will only dominate the market as long as M$ keeps pouring money into the XBox hole, there are still loads of people that are wary of M$.

And more and more are wary of Sony everyday, what with their rootkit scandal, suing Lik-Sang out of business, battery issues, etc etc.

#14

What's wrong with a 2x BlueRay drive?

As far as i know they are more silent as they don't have to spin up this fast and more data can be read on the same distance compared to a DVD. Doesn't sound too bad to me.

neilo

#15

Did anyone read the Bob Crigely predictions for 2007? He reckons that MS is actively talking about how to support Sony and the crater that is the PS3 so they don't get hit with another antitrust problem.

#16

You knew what you were paying for when you bought it. Times change and prices drop. You don't expect to be compensated when GM, Honda or some other car company releases a new year model car, do you?

Yeah, but its the norm for cars to change every year, not the norm for console systems. If i paid for an xbox 360, I'd know what I paid for...but when Microsoft suddenly releases the same exact 360 with a larger HD for the same price, whats happens then? I can't just upgrade my 360 like the PS3. I'd have to go and buy a brand new 360 just to enjoy the upgrades.

Blitzplotter

#17

Sony marketing engines went full steam ahead, why else would they be doing the rounds on national (British anyway) news saying they've won the format war already ? Is it the kiss of death ?

DampeS8N

#18

far as the 2X blu-ray thing goes. 2X for blu-ray is still crazy fast. Remember. That is 2X normal playback of a blu-ray movie. Just like 72X on a CD is 72 times audio playback.

#19

2x blu-rays are still slower than the DVD drive in the 360. Almost twice as slow, in fact.

#20

2x blu-rays are still slower than the DVD drive in the 360. Almost twice as slow, in fact.

Ya mean the HD-DVD addon, what would the speed of that be?

xlsior

#21

2x Blu-ray drive? Blech. Can you say "load times?"

It's actually not that bad... Although it's definitely a step down from a standard 16x DVD drive.

52x CD Rom = 7.8 MB/sec
16x DVD = 22.13 MB/sec
2x Blu Ray = 8.99 MB/sec

#22

Ya mean the HD-DVD addon, what would the speed of that be?

Actually I was referring to the standard DVD drive in the 360. I'm not sure what speed the HD-DVD drive is. I'll see what I can find about that (although that won't ever affect 360 games, for obvious reasons.)

Dark Half

#23

Steve Jobs: "We're better than you are! We have better stuff."
Bill Gates: "You don't get it, Steve. That doesn't matter! "

#24

Well, UMDs were just as slow, if not worse than Blu-Ray, IIRC.

#25

@xlsior
How do you come to 8.99MB/s? I would have understood 9MB/s but 8.99MB/s? :O)

#26

An whilst we're at it an XboX360 goes with a 12xDVD, so a theoretical max speed of 16.2MB/s. Average speed is reported to run at 10-12MB/s.

xlsior

#27

How do you come to 8.99MB/s? I would have understood 9MB/s but 8.99MB/s? :O)

I didn't actually know what the speed was, so did a quick web search. The first couple of hits I got all gave the 8.99 MB/sec number, although you can also find 9 MB/sec.

#28

I wasn't keen on any next gen consoles, but I've played the PS3 and I can say that even the first batch of games are very impressive graphical wise indeed.
Also as that gamasutra article mentions, the PS3's hardware certainly is next generation. It'll survive longer than both the Wii and X360, two of my mates have the Wii and the novelty of the swinging controller has worn off somewhat. They're both back to playing PS2 games using the joypad like me. It's like the Eyetoy, really great and innovative, but after a while you just can't be arsed to wave your arms about. For now there's nothing wrong with my PS2 and all the games I've barely touched on it, I don't need to invest in any new consoles for several years yet.

#29

Most of the first batch of games for the PS3 have been in development for nearly as long as X360's newer games.

I still don't have reason to believe that the PS3's hardware really is somehow more next gen than the 360 - what with less RAM than the X360, and all kinds of problems actually utilizing the SPE's due to their small amount of RAM and inability to deal with branching logic well. We'll see.

#30

Well, I've seen no problems with the X360, it's a dependable console, IMHO. I mean, wait until Microsoft releases the new and improved X360, whenever that'll be, and we'll see what that console war does THEN. Of course, a lot of X360 owners, like myself, are seeing red about that they're doing this so soon, however, I could care less about switching to PS3 at this point, even tho it may sound more like a bargain to get that now. I probably have my eyes set on going Wii60 myself. On top of that, I do have a PS2, and there's people that predict that the PS2 will outsell a PS3 by the end of this year, we'll have to see if they're right.

#31

I'm fairly sure the speed settings on drives are all based on CD-ROM speeds. ie a 16x DVD-ROM drive will spin at the same rate as a 16x CD-ROM drive. But, since the data is much closer together on the disk surface, a DVD-ROM drive will grab more data per second at 16x than an equivalent CD-ROM drive.

You can see Blu-ray drive speed plotted against 12x DVD=ROM data transfer rate here:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2006/02/10/will_bluray_be_faster_than_dvd.html

And you can see DVD-ROM transfer rates against the equivalent speed required of a CD drive to match it here:
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#4.2

So, yes, a 2x Blu-ray drive should be a little slower than a 16x DVD-ROM drive. That said, there could be all kinds of optimisations and changes in the Blu-ray format that closes the gap further.

#32

Contrary to what's been written in the article already a 3xBlueRay should beat the xbox360 transferrate due to the average speed of the dvd.

Anyway how long are loading times on a Xbox360 or PS3? Is this a matter of minutes or seconds? I quite don't care if i would have to wait 11 instead of 9 seconds but if we're talking about minutes...

#33

Also as that gamasutra article mentions, the PS3's hardware certainly is next generation. It'll survive longer than both the Wii and X360...

If we're looking at the same article, it consists of a Sony employee "bigging up" his product, of course he'll be trying to insinuate that his console is more "next-gen" than all the rest.

Truth be told, I don't see very much that's next-gen about the PS3. The graphics for both the 360 or PS3 are pretty nice, but I don't see much that screams next gen. No stunning new techniques, or anything. I'm pretty confident that the PS3 and 360 are pretty much neck-and-neck, based on screenshots.

#34

Anyway how long are loading times on a Xbox360 or PS3?

Can't speak for the PS3, but on the 360 it seems roughly comparable with previous gen. There's a few exceptions: Chromehounds is a pretty fast loader, but Project Gotham Racing 3 is dog-slow.

#35

Discussing which console has the fastest reading disk drive seems pretty trivial to me. Especially considering it all depends how data is stored on the disk as well.

#36

Anyway how long are loading times on a Xbox360 or PS3? Is this a matter of minutes or seconds?

XBox360 load times are pretty slow. It's noticeably slower than my old PS2, but I can't honestly say that load times are going to bother me unless loading is happening all the time, and I've yet to come across games which do that.

#37

I suspect this is due to the game but are there any which stream in the background?

yoko

#38

I'm off from consoles for a long period... but recently playing of new consoles, I found Nintendo knows "How to make the game fun" while Sony and M$ don't....

#39

Yeahh, so only the console creators make games for their own consoles? That argument makes perfect sense.

#40

Well, when we all upgrade to Vista, we'll know that gaming is far slower than XP ever was. As for consoles, we all know that X360 gaming is slower than original Xbox by some degree.

#41

Anyway how long are loading times on a Xbox360 or PS3?

For the short period that I had the PS3, it loaded quicker than the 360. And lot quieter too.

The graphics for both the 360 or PS3 are pretty nice, but I don't see much that screams next gen

You have played the games on the 360 and PS3 right? There is quite a difference in graphics quality between the latest systems and the previous. Gears of War is a prime example, no xbox game looked remotely like it. Resistance, while only a launch a simple launch title already looks way better than any previous PS2 games.

I found Nintendo knows "How to make the game fun" while Sony and M$ don't....

Heh, depends on how you define "fun". Theres fun cutsey family safe gamming, and thens there the fun edgier hardcore gamming. Which one you think Nintendo prefer? (although Eternal Darkness was something of an anomaly...)

RocketGnome

#42

That's the Nintendo of the 80's and 90's...

While typically Nintendo's internal developers do not produce anything that won't hit every demographic, they'll license just about anything now for 3rd parties. (Red Steele, although a *meh* game, has a fairly significant number of adult themes)

A couple of threads over, someone was mentioning Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64). While it's true that the graphics are cutesy, that almost makes it more perverse when you couple it with the adult themes and content it contains. If that's not edgy, I'm not sure what is...

#43

ek, I couldn't stand conker, was just another kind of jouvenile.

#44

You have played the games on the 360 and PS3 right?

360 only, so far. In 1080i.

There is quite a difference in graphics quality between the latest systems and the previous. Gears of War is a prime example, no xbox game looked remotely like it. Resistance, while only a launch a simple launch title already looks way better than any previous PS2 games.

Obviously there is an improvement in graphics quality. Gears of War does look nice, but it hardly made my jaw drop. I've already seen nice shaders, great normal maps, and realistic skin textures. Those things were already here.

No one is arguing that next gen games don't look better. I never said that. But "next-gen" to me should mean something new. It should literally mean the NEXT GENERATION. Except we're still using shaders, normal maps and billboarded polygons for smoke effects, same as last gen. They're just sharper this time. That doesn't scream NEXT GENERATION to me. It's last generation.

#45

But you haven't seen these things in the last console generation, you've seen them on another platform. Whilst it would be nice if i could use a PS3 also as a spaceship i somehow think you're a little bit unrealistic and expecting too much.

Mostly it works like this:

a) There are those updates with really new concepts behind.
b) Then there are those which improve these concepts and have some more power to actually make meaningful use of these concepts.
c) jmp a)

I think it's a reasonable cycle and you simply can't expect a psi-link just two generations after a gameboy.

#46

But you haven't seen these things in the last console generation

This is my exact point. I have.

Whilst it would be nice if i could use a PS3 also as a spaceship i somehow think you're a little bit unrealistic and expecting too much.

...and you simply can't expect a psi-link just two generations after a gameboy.

Oh, I see. I was bemoaning the lack of new and groundbreaking graphical techniques this time round, you saw "spaceship" and "psi-link". It would make it far easier for me to make my point if you wouldn't make stuff up. Think you could give that a shot?

Before the PS2 came out, I read articles with Sony people saying how procedural textures would be ideal on the system for preventing tiling textures. For those who don't know, this is a way of generating a texture from an equation. This means, the texture will always be unique, and never repeat. For one reason or another, no one pursued this option. Perhaps it used too much CPU time. And now, a whole generation has passed, we have several processing cores in our consoles. And yet, on starting up Chromehounds on the 360 I'm treated to a noticeably repeating tiled texture spread out over the landscape in front of me. Seriously, we should be past this.

So, really, is it unreasonable to see a last-gen capability actually being used in this generation? That's "expecting too much" in your book is it?

I'm hard pressed to think of anything that's new in this generation that we haven't seen in a previous generation. And HD movie playback doesn't count.

#47

This is my exact point. I have.

Well, okay i would agree on the Wii but for sure not for the XBox360 and the PS3. There is so much more you can do with the power in these consoles that things can look different and unique in quality and quantity.

As for tiling textures: Procedurale textures on a console for sure won't involve the cpu if they are implemented reasonable, this is shader code. They are very handy for some things but no matter if procedural, generative or just stored pixel information you can do a nice tiling with all of them. If it isn't done well than that's due to the developer's effort on mapping and producing the right ones.

I think you should moan more about what developers squeeze out of the consoles at the moment and not what consoles are able to deliver if used well. And time after time you'll see better looking games on each console like it always was...

#48

I have no idea about the dev kits for the new consoles but what really could make a difference is if they would simplify&optimize the developing process for a console. As far as i know Microsoft is more heading into this direction than Sony at the moment.

#49

Well, okay i would agree on the Wii but for sure not for the XBox360 and the PS3.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. What I said originally was that technologies like shaders, normal maps, billboards, etc., have been done before. You said "ah, but not in the last console generation". I'm saying that yes, these technologies were indeed all in use in the last generation. And it is for this reason that I am unimpressed with this generation, for there doesn't seem to be anything here that we didn't already have.

There is so much more you can do with the power in these consoles that things can look different and unique in quality and quantity.

This isn't really what I'm talking about. It's screechingly obvious that the new consoles are better. I have never, once, said that they are not.

As for tiling textures: Procedurale textures on a console for sure won't involve the cpu if they are implemented reasonable, this is shader code.

I know, but I'm trying to think of a reason we aren't seeing the kind of thing. Also, it isn't just "shader code". You can do it without shaders, since the PS2 didn't support them, I believe, and yet was expected to be able to do procedural textures. Indeed, procedural textures have existed long before shaders.

They are very handy for some things but no matter if procedural, generative or just stored pixel information you can do a nice tiling with all of them. If it isn't done well than that's due to the developer's effort on mapping and producing the right ones.

I'm not quite sure you're following my point. With a correctly deployed procedural texture, you will never have any tiling. This capability has been in raytracers for over a decade. I don't really care who's fault it is, and I'm not sure why you're trying to bring in the effort of the developers. Fact is, none of us know the full story, I'm just going by the end product. And I'm a little unimpressed, graphically speaking.

I think you should moan more about what developers squeeze out of the consoles at the moment and not what consoles are able to deliver if used well.

*blink* I don't really know what you're talking about. I'm just saying that the new generation of consoles hasn't really impressed me as much as previous "new generations". Simple as that.

And time after time you'll see better looking games on each console like it always was...

Again, I'm not really sure what your point is. I have never said that we don't get better looking games on each console generation.

#50

My point is: Stay with your opinion. Personally i think that a) your argumentation is wrong and b) i simply have a different opinion and as this discussion isn't this interesting i would cut it here and spare the time...

#51

You're damn right it isn't interesting, so I'm a little unsure why you started it. You didn't actually come up with anything, or tell me where I was "wrong". In fact, you were wrong about a few points, so...?

*shrug* I'm happy to leave it.

#52

Yeahh, so only the console creators make games for their own consoles? That argument makes perfect sense.

Well perhaps he only has experience with Nintendo consoles. These days, that's close to true for Nintendo consoles ;)

For the short period that I had the PS3, it loaded quicker than the 360. And lot quieter too.

Oh god, yes, I forgot that. ( How could I have forgotten!? ) The 360 makes a noise like a jet airplane taking off when it's loading. Took me a week to realise that this was normal and not a sign that something was going wrong.

dynaman

#53

Procedural shaders: Interesting idea. Does anyone know if they are not being used because there are no tools for artists to work with them? (Just asking, I have no idea if there are tools or not)

#54

You find these more for renderers. For realtime gfx it's simply a performance hit and the question is if they do make sense for a given task. It's easier to a) do the texture in a renderer or b) calculate a texture once with a procedural routine than letting a procedural shader running all the time. Simply a question of shader power and the more shader power the more likely you'll see it.

#55

Funny thing. Mine was like that, then it broke. The replacement is extremely quite in comparison. I think my replacement is an earlier model. That's just a guess, based on the fact that the game screenshots on the box were older on the replacement unit that for the first one.

FlameDuck

#56

I still don't have reason to believe that the PS3's hardware really is somehow more next gen than the 360

So you don't see how an 8 core 8 way CPU is better than a 3 core 1 way CPU? PS3 definately has the upper hand in the technology department, however none of that matters. What matters is what you do with it, and Microsoft has a long history of making mediocre products very succesful, where as Sony history is making superior products flop. Anyone remember the BetaMax?

(although Eternal Darkness was something of an anomaly...)

Along with Conkers BFD, GoldenEye, Bio F.R.E.A.K.S, Mortal Kombat 4, Wargods, Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil 4, Killer 7 and Def Jam: Fight for New York. And those are just the ones I have.

It should literally mean the NEXT GENERATION.

A console Generation only lasts 3 years, so it's unlikely we'll see order of magnitude improvements in the later "generations".

But you haven't seen these things in the last console generation

You must not have had an XBox.

Procedurale textures on a console for sure won't involve the cpu if they are implemented reasonable, this is shader code.

In a console (at least PS3 and Wii) you're using UMA, so it doesn't matter whether you do it using the GPU or the CPU - and since the PS3 has such a rediculously overpowered CPU, it would be mind numbingly stupid, not to utilize it for full effect.

I think you should moan more about what developers squeeze out of the consoles at the moment and not what consoles are able to deliver if used well.

The only problem with that is, that by the time developers get accustomed to the new console architecture, they need to start over again on the new next generation hardware.

Procedural shaders: Interesting idea. Does anyone know if they are not being used because there are no tools for artists to work with them?

No. It is a limit on technology. It's not plausible as long as you're working in a non-UMA environment, or have a shader unit that doesn't support conditional branching.

#57

You must not have had an XBox

Nope but the gpu power just isn't the same and so the visual quality/effects whatever you prefer to use the additional power for, has improved significantly.

The only problem with that is, that by the time developers get accustomed to the new console architecture, they need to start over again on the new next generation hardware.

Can be a good and a bad thing but generally i would say if you dislike this than you're wrong in the computer business at all.

Yep i was seeing this from the pc side. Beside of the UMA do the gfx chips on the consoles also have some extra fast memory they only can access? I'm not quite sure if you would gain something using a processor and updating the texture all the time instead of using shaders.

#58

My 360 is pretty quiet ... now the original Xbox and the PS2, those were loud!

As for the above next-gen or not-so-next-gen argument. Think of it like the jump from the 8-Bit NES to the 16-Bit Genesis/Mega Drive. Truthfully there wasn't anything much different ... everything was just more of what we got in the previous generation. It wasn't until the SNES, 32X, and Playstation that things started to get radical because of 3D gameplay.

#59

yeah, what you get in the 360 and PS3 is basicly more CPU, sony can do shaders in hardware, and both have higher resolutions. But for the most part because Xbox had shaders since 2001 its more of an evolution for the 360.

I really liked the old Xbox, and feel that it was in some ways responsible for shaders taking off in PC games. Untill the 360 came out no one was developing games for new hardware, when the xbox came out suddenly every PC developer was adding shader support with plans to beanch out into the more lucrative console market. And I don't think it hurt PC gaming much at all. Quite the opposite :)

Sledge

#60

So you don't see how an 8 core 8 way CPU is better than a 3 core 1 way CPU?

I can remember how, in the Saturn, the complexity of the architecture meant that no bugger could code for it properly and, in real terms, it generally delivered poorer performances than the PlayStation as a result. 'Better' hardware is surely the gear that lets you get great results as straightforwardly as possible, not the gear with the most technobabble attached.

#61

The amount of memory directly available to the SPE's is not much - 128kb I believe. Otherwise they've got to take a huge hit and pull from main memory and that's slow. There are a ton of other less than optimal design choices regarding the Cell - design choices that limit what could have been a truly revolutionary processor. Of course, I admit I'm not all that knowledgeable when it comes to hardware and have been relaying what I've read from developers blogs and such.

The other big problem that I've heard with the SPE's is that they have no branching prediction capabilities, and therefore are considerably slower than the same operation on a new thread in the 360. Don't forget that the 360 is capable of 6 active threads - each of which benefits from hi-speed memory access and CPU branch prediction.

#62

Along with Conkers BFD, GoldenEye, Bio F.R.E.A.K.S, Mortal Kombat 4, Wargods, Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil 4, Killer 7 and Def Jam: Fight for New York. And those are just the ones I have.

Yeah, i have most of those too (Def Jam New York was one kick ass game on the Cube). Nintendo is always going to release an edgier game every once in a while, most of them will be ports from other system. While there are a handful of exclusive "edgier" games that Nintendo releases (such as Conkers, Eternal Darkness, Goldeneye...), no matter how you mix it, most of their games - and Nintendo knows this - will be geared towards family oriented and family safe themes, but not neccessarily "kiddies" games. But the interesting thing is that most these games are pretty good and of course, fun...if you like that stuff.

Hotcakes

#63

It's all flopping compared to the PS2 (which outsold all the consoles during the December period).

#64

It's all flopping compared to the PS2 (which outsold all the consoles during the December period).

Actually, the DS outsold everything. if you include handhelds. PS2 was ahead of PS3. XBox360 and Wii though, yeah.

PSP sales doubled in December though, so it pushed the DS pretty close. Anyone else thinking that all these security flaws leading to custom firmware came from Sony? ;)

#65

Well, look at it this way... If handhelds are the way to go, why isn't Microsoft looking into coming out with a version of Zune, and adding Xbox-style gaming for that? I'd like to see MS come out with ZuneBox, or whatever they would call it. It would very easily go toe to toe with the PSP, and probably outperform it. With WiFi, you can have Xbox Live on there, and download demos to go, and what not. I see no problem with Microsoft trying out something like that.

Wow, according to my siggy, it seems like Microsoft's almost at the 10 million mark as far as how many consoles they sold. Kudos to Mr. Ballmer and Peter Moore, and all those guys in Redmond, WA.

#66

PS2's are dirt cheap now though, so no surprise that they are selling well. You can get them for $130 now, which is the same price as a couple of games for the PS3 or 360 here.

#67

Well, look at it this way... If handhelds are the way to go, why isn't Microsoft looking into coming out with a version of Zune, and adding Xbox-style gaming for that?

Because one bottomless pit to put their money into is enough? Seriously, look at the PSP. It's had a really hard time competing with the DS despite vastly superior technology, an absolutely shedload of great games and exciting new stuff like playing your PSX games on it.

The handheld market is dominated by a young, casual audience. They're not looking for technically demanding hardcore games. Sony have had to plough a lonely new furrow with the PSP and it's only just starting to pay off. Microsoft are even more hardcore in the type of games their consoles attract. They wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting the japanese games that have helped the PSP do as well it has, so they would have to rely on converting PC and XBox360 owners into buying handhelds.

That's a tough sell.

#68

True, it's predicted that the PS2 will far outsell the PS3 this year by experts. I mean, there's gonna be a lot of life in the PS2 for quite a while, I may say. Developers will probably stick with the old PS2 for a while, sorry Kaz and Ken, it seems like you won't see any good profits in this gen of consoles, not yet anyway. Sony had their time to shine. It's time for Nintendo and Microsoft to battle for first place now, Sony's pretty much toast by evidence by what's on the shelf.

#69

Yeah ... someone mentioned people not knowing about "this shipment". That's total BS ... every store I've been in for the past week is loaded up with PS3's.

Today I got to playing Gears of War after finally getting my 360 fixed and that game is hot! Very well done and a decent change of pace from typical shooters. It's still a shooter ... but it's just a touch different. That combined with Live Arcade and now iTunes like movie, music, video downloads makes the 360 a great choice. Additionally, they did also add 1080P support ;)

#70

That's total BS ... every store I've been in for the past week is loaded up with PS3's.

Actually, I still have yet to see one piling up on any shelves. I've been to 2 Best Buys, 2 Circuit Cities, 1 Target, 2 EB Games, 1 Game Crazy the past week. None of them had any visible when I was there and one of the Best Buys had already sold out last weeks shipment, so did Ciruit City(one of those Circuit City was the scene of the famous tear gas crowd control incident during the PS3 launch). BTW, it was the Best Buy employees who were telling me that that no one knew that shipments of PS3s were comming in, but apparently they sold out pretty fast when people did find out. As of right now, I still can't just go to a store and pick one up, at least in this area. Maybe this week......

Hambone

#71

Fry's has lots of PS3's and were really trying to push it. They had it hooked up to a big high def TV on the main floor with Resistance running. Spent about 20 minutes with it. The graphics on this game do not even come close to the hype. The textures were muddy and of poor quality. I was shocked by how average it looked. Chronicles of Riddick and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory on the original XBOX actually looked better than this game. Also it seemed to struggle a bit in the FPS department. I heard this game ran at 30 FPS and from my hands on, it felt like it.

I comparison GOW on the 360 runs at 60 FPS and feels really good. And as far as how it looks ... well I think GOW's hype is well deserved.

Here's hoping Sony comes out with something impressive to show off the PS3 soon or no one is going to want to give up there PS2 anytime soon.

I would really like to see a good rivalry between MS and Sony as the consumer ends up being the winner. As it stands I do not see 600 USD reasons to own a PS3.

Some of my friends would say I am easily impressed and excited by geek stuff. Oddly the PS3 did not impress me. Now if I could only find a Wii to play with somewhere. I really want to check it out and see if it is as cool and fun as people are raving about. Hope so.

Allan

#72

Well, the only way that the $600 would be worth the while, is if Sony pushes the PS3 as the cheapest Blu-Ray player around. I mean, their stand-alone Blu-Ray player is at $1K USD, so think about it.

Hambone

#73

The scaling problems in the PS3's BlueRay player are not present in their stand alone player. The stand alone player is very, very nice. Not a thousand dollars nice, but nice. The fact that you can't do 720P DVD playback on the PS3 is the most grievous mistake Sony could make if the intent was to flog it as a cheap BlueRay player.

On a side note a 100,000 Xbox 360 HDDVD players have sold, which is pretty good for an addon. They had this hooked up in a corner at Fry's to a Sharp Aquos LCD. It was stunning and if they hadn't sold the last two they had while I was in the store I might have bought one on the spot.

Allan

Dreamora

#74

What does a cheap Blu Ray player help?
You would need to be VERY stupid to waste your money on a BluRay or HD DVD player right now!

Hybrid disks as well as players for both formats are on their way and won't be much more expensive than the "single format" player and will definitely be the better choice.

On the graphics: Thats no surprise. As Carmack and other devs mentioned, the decision of Sony, creating a overcomplicated architecture once again, after the PS2 already suffered such problems, is not really understandable.
MS on the other side seems to have taken the more usefull path by using something that is at least known to most devs with multi core - multi proc experience. But asymetrical stuff like the Cell is something that will need years until it can be used usefully ... similar to how long it took to make PS2 look good thanks to its unintuitive graphics solution. (and thanks to the "capabilities" of the asym units, I'm not sure if the difference outside physics and AI will be that large, that the PS3 has only the slightest chance to come out as winner in the fight against the X360 ... We are talking of a tripple G5 like monster vs 1 core + 7 additional very cut down async units)

I for one won't buy either (I own a Wii, so the true winner is already in house :) ) unless their price and energy consumption is at an acceptable level.
Hell I play on 1680x1050 with 80W, so 300W+ is highly inacceptable for something that does not deliver better game content (content != eye candy crap)

FlameDuck

#75

If handhelds are the way to go, why isn't Microsoft looking into coming out with a version of Zune, and adding Xbox-style gaming for that?

Because the iPhone is going to crush the Zune?

Wow, according to my siggy, it seems like Microsoft's almost at the 10 million mark as far as how many consoles they sold. Kudos to Mr. Ballmer and Peter Moore, and all those guys in Redmond, WA.

Yes. Congratulations on marketing a console that sells worse than the Sega Dreamcast. One would previously not have thought that possible.

The fact that you can't do 720P DVD playback on the PS3 is the most grievous mistake Sony could make if the intent was to flog it as a cheap BlueRay player.

Also, the ability to play back Blu-Ray discs was probably a big mistake aswell.

#76

The Dreamcast actually sold well, that wasn't the reason Sega tanked ...

Mark Tiffany

#77

The Dreamcast actually sold well

But not as well as the competition. Which is the important thing.

FlameDuck

#78

The Dreamcast actually sold well, that wasn't the reason Sega tanked ...

How do you figure that?

The Dreamcast sold way less than any of its contemporary consoles, and even less than previous consoles had. In fact with the exception of the spectacluar failures like the Atari Jaguar, the Commodore CD32 and the 3DO, the only consoles that sold less than the Dreamcast where the Sega Saturn and the Sega Mega CD (and if we're counting handhelds the Sega GameGear and the Nokia N-Gage). So yes, compared to Sega previous trainwrecks, it sold "well".

Compared to contemporary consoles, it wasn't doing too great tho' selling less than 1/3 of what the N64 sold, and less than 1/10th of what the PlayStation sold.

Even the GameCube managed to sell more than twice as many units as the Dreamcast, and isn't normally considered a console that sold "well". Oddly the XBox didn't do much better, yet most people percieve it as being largely successful (despite a net loss of more than 4 billion USD for Microsoft).

Even the PSP, the current laughing stock of the console market, is selling better.

But hey, there's no accounting for bad math.

#79

The Dreamcast actually sold well, that wasn't the reason Sega tanked ...

heh...yeah actually it didn't sell too well and it was one of the reasons why Sega "tanked"... but nontheless, games are still comming out for it....

#80

The Dreamcast didn't even get 2 years worth of sales under its belt though. It's idiotic to compare it to Playstation or N64 (3X and 10X the sales) when it only got about 1/3 of the market time those consoles got before Sega could no longer support it do to their previous screwups. If the Dreamcast received support all the way through its lifecycle then it would be a fair comparison.

Perhaps it was just in my area but there were a ton of people at the midnight sale for Dreamcast and I knew more people with a Dreamcast than any of the other "next-gen" consoles at the time. Sega was in $700 million worth of debt due to poor business handling not solely (mostly due to all the screwups between the Genesis and the Dreamcast) because of the Dreamcast. They got up to near 10 million consoles and in the time they had I think that's great, a subjective matter I suppose.

This is from Wikipedia and basically what I remember about the Dreamcast:

The Dreamcast was released on November 27, 1998 in Japan, on September 9, 1999 in North America (the date 9/9/99 featured heavily in US promotion) and on October 14, 1999 in Europe. The tagline used to promote the console in the US was, "It's thinking", and in Europe, "Up to 6 Billion Players".

The Dreamcast was the first console to include a built-in modem and Internet support for online gaming. Previous consoles such as the Genesis/Mega Drive had online capabilities, but these were comparably limited and required extra hardware (XBAND).

The Dreamcast enjoyed brisk sales in its first season, and was one of Sega's most successful hardware units. In the United States alone, a record 300,000 units [3] had been pre-ordered before launch and Sega sold 500,000 consoles in just two weeks (including 225,000 sold on the first 24 hours which became a video game record). In fact, due to brisk sales and hardware shortages, Sega was unable to fulfill all of the advance orders.

Sega confirmed that it made $98.4 million on combined hardware and software sales with the Dreamcast with its September 9, 1999 launch. Sega even compared the record figure to the opening day gross of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, which made $28.5 million during the first 24 hours in theaters.

Chris Gilbert, senior vice president of sales, Sega of America, said on the 24 November 1999: "By hitting the one million units sold landmark, it is clear that the Sega Dreamcast consumer has moved beyond the hard-core gamer and into the mass market."

He likened it to a music album going platinum or a film netting $100m in box office receipts.

Before the launch in the United States, Sega had already taken the extra step in displaying Dreamcast's capabilities in stores nationwide. Much like the PlayStation's launch in North America, the displays of titles such as Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure, Power Stone, and Hydro Thunder helped the Dreamcast succeed in the first year.

Due to its losses from making games for the past generation Sega Saturn, Electronic Arts announced it would not support the Dreamcast unless it sold 1 million units. When this happened within a record 90 days, EA went back on their word and declined to support the Dreamcast in favor of Sony's upcoming PlayStation 2.

Although the Dreamcast had none of EA's popular sports games, due in part to EA's losses from the Sega Saturn, Sega Sports titles helped to fill that void. The biggest competition between Sega Sports and EA Sports in the US was their football games (i.e. NFL 2K1 vs. Madden NFL 2001). Both games were highly regarded, NFL 2K1 having the advantage of online play (coinciding with release of SegaNet) and Madden NFL 2001 arguably having a graphics edge. NFL 2K1 outsold Madden NFL 2001 with about 410,000 copies, which was about the number of PlayStation 2's that had been sold in America at the time.

Clearly the Dreamcast was a success, it just wasn't enough of a success to pull Sega out of the blackhole it created with everything it made between Dreamcast and Genesis.

Hambone

#81

I still love my DreamCast and my kids still play Grandia on it all the time. Tennis too. It was way ahead of it's time.
If I recall, at the time, the DreamCast had the most successful and lucrative launch in history and literally flew off the shelves when it was released. Had a great line up of launch games too. What killed it was the Sony marketing machine which showed a bunch of pre-rendered scenes and flogged the "Emotion Engine" and said "just wait for us..." Well I waited and when the PS2 came out it looked no better than my Dreamcast and in some cases (due to bad aliasing) looked worse. The damge was done, though, and the DreamCast decline was inevitable. Meanwhile it took almost 18 months for a really "great" game to come out on the PS2.

Sony is an absolute SOB when it comes to their marketing. Dare I say worse than MS. Don't get me started on the original XBOX's history of scratched disks. It only happened in Japan and only it turns out, by people who were given "incentives" by Sony to discredit XBOX anyway possible.
Not much was heard about this in the West but it still accounts MS'S poor showing in Japan.

On a side note. I was just thinking about how much money WOW must make per annum. It's insane. If there are, by estimates, 3.5 million paying subscribers per month on average then WOW makes Blizzard 576 million per year. That is surely more than any video game in history (even the Sims :).

If I was MS I would spare no expense in coming up with an online experience such as WOW for the 360 and XBOX live. It is obvious that the MMO domain, if done properly, is where the big money is.

Allan

#82

Well, seems like even tho the Dreamcast is a dead console, there's still people that wish that Sega hadn't done what they did, that's obvious. It's also easy to develop a game around. Hey, I wonder if there's any way to mod a Dreamcast to be a Blitz game emulator of sorts... That would be awesome if that would work out.

#83

ANyway, when I was down at ASDA today they had Nintendo DS's piling up on the shelves, since when did systems piling up on a shelf mean it was unpopular? It merely means they have the item in stock.

Hotcakes

#84

Good point. I can readily go into any store and get a PS2 over the counter, too.

according to my siggy, it seems like Microsoft's almost at the 10 million mark as far as how many consoles they sold.

Your siggy is out of date - PS3 has topped the 2 million mark (without a Euro market, mind you).
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/01/16/sony_passes_2m_mark/

sorry Kaz and Ken, it seems like you won't see any good profits in this gen of consoles,

While Nintendo are experiencing wildly fluctuating sales with Wii, Sony's PS3 is getting around a solid 70K sales a month - which one would assume is their supply quota. If that were to keep up for the next 12 months Sony would be quite happy with themselves.

the Commodore CD32

I thought the CD32 did quite well in the face of Commodore's problems? Unlike the CDTV...