General

Joined: A long time ago...

Im not saying everyone who bought one is a loser.. There are some wealthy people out there who bought it for sheer bling factor... and some other wealthy people who bought it to play it.. I mean shit... there were people out there paying $15k for one... I doubt someone would pay $15000 for one if they weren't going to play it...
Im saying the majority of gamers aren't like that.... They designed the ps3 for a shallower audience than the rest of the competitors systems available... The vast majority of the video game market is teens and college students, which don't have a lot of spending cash as it is.
The xbox360 v2 will be coming out this year and is expected to be the same price as the current model... possibly with an hd-dvd drive built in... the newer system will have a 120g hard drive too.. plus an hdmi output with full support for 1080p... so all in all, the xbox 360 is going to be cheaper, with more space, and pretty much equivilant to the ps3. I could post a link to a side by side visual comparison of need for speed carbon and call of duty to show that the systems are pretty much equal in visual quality... the only difference is the price... and with the newer features in the v2 360, its really going to make the ps3 not so hot for your buck... why pay an extra 300 for the same thing?
I honestly think paying $400 for a video game system is bad... people still buy it... but its really pushing the envelope for what people will pay... If people wanted a computer, they would just buy a computer... You can build a gaming computer that will perform just as good as a 360 or ps3 for only a little more than what you would pay for a ps3, and you can do a lot more with it...
The blue ray stuff is a waste... game developers can't fill those discs up with content in a reasonable amount of time. hd content in games takes a long time to make use of and adding to already long development cycles isn't really ideal... developers aren't jumping over the idea of adding another year to the development cycle because it eats into their profits... the games take longer to make which = more hours... more hours = more money... and the games are selling for the same price... increasing the game prices on an already expensive console wouldn't do anything for your sales....
I can see why your a bit sony biased then... I don't think it takes sherlock holmes to figure out sony puts money into your pocket...
But see, the thing is though... not everyone is a game developer... not everyone makes game developer salary.. and not everyones willing to pay more just for the sake of paying more... The fanboys aren't in large enough numbers to keep sony at the top this time around. Most of the people I know with a ps2 aren't really interested in getting a ps3 either due to the price or because they have a 360 or are planning on buying one.... I know you want the ps3 to do good cause your salary may depend on it... but words on the internet aren't going to increase the lacking sales... If sony wanted to hold the market they should have reconcidered the blue ray and made that an optional add on component like ms did so they could get the console to the consumer cheaper...
Sony is killing the blue ray by trying to force it upon the people... and as we've seen in the past with these attempts at forcing the market to change to a new format(minidisc)... it doesn't work... apparently theres several movies recently released that for some reason wont play on a regular blueray player, and will only play on the ps3... these stupid attempts at forcing the customer to do what they want are only going to hurt their sales.... and this was done intentionally for what ever reason... why sony would do something like this is beyond my understanding... These issues are only going to anger the consumer and force them away... Not only does this hurt sonys system sales, its also going to hurt the movies sales. Movies that only come out on blue ray aren't going to sell nearly as many copies as movies that come out on dvd, hd dvd, and blue ray.... and this is really going to be the exponential decay of the company as a whole... No big name actors are going to want to make movies with sony because they wont sell any, again cause no one owns blue ray players...

Joined: A long time ago...

Oh...as for comparing the same games on different platforms...that's not surprising they would look similar. It's because those games were developed simultaneously. When I was at Activision, we released our Spiderman games on all the systems. We were the first team to ever accomplish that. But our game engine was designed for the lowest common denominator. There's no way we would have accomplished a simultaneous release date if we had to have a team for each console so they can focus on the strengths of each system.

That's why I mentioned before, don't be surprised to see multiple sku's for the same game...just don't expect it to push the envelope. Come on dude...let's think rationally before stating your opinions.

As for building a computer to play games on, I've done that before. But after I get home from a long day at work, sitting in front of my computer, the thought of sitting down on my comfortable couch to play games on a TV that's like 15 times bigger than my computer monitor, and I can kick my feet up on the ottoman...you better believe that's how I would want to wind down. It's rare for me nowadays to spend more than 30 minutes on my computer when I get home. But I won't rag on PC gamers if that's their thing. And really, for me to build a computer at the same price as the PS3 or 360, would be a very dated computer in a shorter time. If you want something kick ass, SLI is all the rage and that's easily $500 just for a video card. Not going that route again. My student loan is much higher than it should be because I chose to upgrade my computer every semester just to stay on top of my games. LOL!

Joined: A long time ago...

There are lots of games that you can just plain tell look better or worse on different systems. The xbox version of soul calibur 2 for example. If you've played the gc and ps2 versions you could immediatly tell the graphics were better on an xbox. The lines were just sharper on everything.
Who says you can't hook a computer up to your large tv? my friend plays quake 4 with a projector aimed at a wall. Computer games can be played on tv's easily.
building a gaming computer can be done for cheap... its a matter of what you want in a gaming computer... you can buy something top of the line and spend $4000 or you can buy something mid range for $600.... but the performance difference between $600 and $4000 isn't large enough to justify the price. I have a friend who spent a fuckload of cash on a gaming computer, only for the computer I built my brother to out perform it.. Its really mostly in the graphics card. My friend had an athlon fx with 6800 ultra sli with 2 gigs of performance memory.... I bought my brother a really basic computer from microcenter for $200 after mail in rebate that had a sempron 3000 in it.... threw a 7900gt in there, and it smokes his $3000 computer bought only 3 months or so after his.... so it really all depends on how you go about doing it, not how much you spend... Theres no point buying the top of the line stuff for a gaming computer because it will only be top of the line for a month if that... and the price will go down a lot in that month that it takes to get obsolete.... Gaming on a budget processor works just fine... sli is a waste of money anyway. You really don't get your moneys worth out of a second card. your just better off waiting till a new generation of card comes out and buy just 1 of those. I have an sli setup and I don't think it was worth the money I paid for it, even if I did get the 6800 ultras cheap. and with the price of the 7950gt's dropping every day, you could cheaply build a pc faster than a ps3 for about the same price.
See thats only rumor mill stuff about the hd-dvd drive not being in the newer version. Microsoft has said things before and gone against their word. It wont be used for games, but that doesn't mean its not going to come with the newer version. A few people at ms have given mixed answers on that.. so it may or it may not... but if it does, and comes at the same price... the ps3 wont have much luster left. and the hdmi port is going to have native 1080p.... which you really can't say much about the ps3's support for 1080p, because there were a lot of issues with that in a lot of games, and they still don't have it right to this day.
The ps2 may have came with a dvd player, but dvd was around long long before the ps2... This is brand new technology made by sony, thats not really taking off all that well... and they are trying to force it upon the masses, which just will not work.. it never has, and it never will... dvd and the ps2 was a different ball game... dvd was well adopted before the ps2 came out and was already an adopted standard....
Nintendo made the wii for what it needed to be. Effeciency is a good business practice... don't sell the customer something they don't need, so you can develope your product cheaper and pass the rewards down to your customer.. Theres a point at which adding unproven technology to a new product goes sour. If you can't sell your product with out fucking the customer, you shouldn't be selling that product.. I don't blame ms for not including hd dvd, its unproven technology... They'll sell it as an add on because sure theres people out there who will buy it... blue ray is just as unproven though... neither of those formats will be around long enough to call them a standard.... Laser disc had other companies behind it and that never took off... what about minidisc? that had more than sony behind it?? just because companies invest in something doesn't make it sell... Do you even know about the 3 other formats looming in the distance that will stomp blue ray and hd-dvd out?? both blue ray and hddvd are doomed to fail... several national surveys have shown the people don't want to change formats yet... a staggering 85% of people don't want to change formats... it will be a while before we see the end of dvd...
And as for the current point in time. Game developers wont be filling those blue ray discs till the systems damn near obsolete. As you've agreed theres not enough time for all that content in a cost effective manner.. SO the wii and the 360 will not be left out in the cold... the ps3 owners will be wondering where the extra cash they spent for the blue ray paid off... thats all... Theres just no way to make hd games in a time efficient manner with out adding tons of extra cost to the final product, which in the end will cut your sales because the game costs more than the other ones... Sure the first gen games don't look as good... thats a no brainer... but they really don't get that much better.... Look at the first madden game on the ps2 verses the newest one... The ps3 will never get games that make proper use of the hardware... The technology they put in it isn't proven technology. All the extra cores, the blue-ray capacity, ect... its never going to be taken full advantage of and it's a waste. Develeopers don't have time or resources to take on all of that. Maybe 5 years from now, when better development tools are available for making hd content and more developers are keen to programming for a multi-core environment, then it will be usefull... but that time isn't now.. This has happened before... The sega dreamcast was ahead of its time with technology and was too difficult to program for, which is one of the reasons developers quit making games for it... There were quite a few features in that system no one ever took advantage of...
You think I don't know anything about the industry, but your making bad assumptions again. I know a few people that work in the biz... Man, if the old backlash forum were still around for me to point out how I proved a person that worked in the industry wrong in a discussion just like this.... back when the ps2, xbox, and game cube were comin out, I had an interesting argument with nev from the obsolete flatland company ronin about which system would come out on top.... I proved him wrong despite him claiming to have inside industry know how cause he makes games... I knew the nintendo would come in dead last, but he said that the xbox would... I knew the ps2 would come out on top... he felt it would be a toss up between sony and nintendo.... He wanted to look at things from his experience, and I looked at it from a practical investor(see things as they are, not what they're sugar coated to be) point of view. The thing is... because he made games, he had a biased view on who would come out on top... just because that particular brand puts money in your pocket, doesn't mean its going to come out on top. His judgement was clouded by his paycheck... Could this be the same case?

You wanna talk about moats? sony doesn't have anything left of what it had as a moat... The competitors came out with equivilent products for cheaper. The moats been breached! During the ps2 days, they had something cause of the userbase they had.... but during the development of the competitions next gen systems, and due to some bad pr over issues with other sony products... sony has pretty much shit the bed. They no longer have a sustainable competitive advantage.... Not that they really had one you could call sustainable to begin with(the temporary customer base from the 5 year life span of a system doesn't count as sustainable)... it was only a matter of time... having the userbase they had worked as a moat for a while, but has since been breached by competition. For sony to regain their "moat" they have a lot of work to do... See the one gaping hole they put in their moat was high switching costs. it costs too much money for current ps2 users to switch to a new one, so they will more than likely go to a cheaper equivilant alternative... This barrier has and will keep most of its loyal customers from returning.... The cost has created a moat for the competitors....
Yes, I too agree, video game trash talkin doesn't affect my view of a person in the parking lot... Just don't assume I don't know anything about the industry because I don't work in it... I know people that do, and I know what the headaches of game development are like.... I've had a beer with a friend over some of these headaches...
It sure can be a real pain in the ass developing video games... especially for consoles, because they typically have a fixed price. No one wants to spend 3-5 years making a game only to sell it for the same price as the competitor who spent 2 on his... Long development times can ruin the profitability of a game.... and have put a few companies out of business and friends of mine out of a job...

Joined: A long time ago...

Hrmmm...okay. So I'm back on a BMX forum to post about video games. LOL!! But if it means anything, I did finally get to go out and ride after the busy holiday season. :)

Anyway, hooking up computers on TVs would be fine but right now, it's not as easy as hooking up a console. Not to mention using a keyboard and mouse is very uncomfortable on a couch...at least to me.

There are problems with installing an HD DVD into the 360 as an internal drive. For one, it will alienate the early supporters for the system. What happens if a game is developed to take advantage of the HD DVD's capacity? Will Microsoft release the same game on two different formats? Is that cost effective? Will that add a level of complexity during testing? If not, will the early adopters need to buy the external HD DVD drive? Wouldn't you call that forcing technology onto the consumer? Would you call that an option anymore? It's not an option if it's a manditory requirement to play certain games. So why is it okay for Microsoft to do this a year or two later? Why is Sony criticized for doing something they feel will benefit their users in the long run? Oh yeah, it's too expensive. Well, I seriously doubt that version 2 360 will cost the same amount as the premium one. I won't speculate how much we'll expect to pay for it but even if it's $100 more, it'll put it right up there with Sony's stuff.

Which brings me to an interesting thought. Sony has launched a system with many options that haven't been tapped yet. People hate them for it. But now, Microsoft feels like it's time for them to catch up...and people praise them for it. Sure, it's all about timing. It wasn't viable for MS to do so back then...but it's right for them to do now(by trying to match the PS3 feature by feature). But what about Sony? They are releasing a product that already hasall those features and more(WiFi)...and people say we don't need it. So by that logic, it's okay for MS to do it now, but not Sony. Do you see the difference? If not, think about it. It's a double standard.

Okay, back to the Madden example you gave me. It's football. How often do the rules change in football to cause it to be a different game? Only thing you're buying are a few improved features: different cameras, new stats, maybe the ability to do fantasy football, etc. But the overall gaming experience doesn't change much. If you deviate from the real world when it comes to sports titles, you risk the chance of a smaller audience.

The capacity of the Blu Ray disk. You say developers won't need the space? Gee, I can remember asking my friend why the hell he would need 1 GB hard drive in his new computer. As things evolve, we learn to use new technology more effectively. Same with Blu Ray...in time, when developers have their tools, their production pipelines, they will become more efficient and learn how to produce more assets that can quickly fill that disk. You're still thinking "today"...the PS3 was designed for "tomorrow." Come on, why do you have a hard time with that?

Again, even if Blu Ray were to fail as a movie format, the PS3 will still use it for its games. You say I won't use the features of the PS3...I'm using the WiFi feature now, I'm downloading demos onto the hard drive, downloading movie trailers for games and movies, hooked up my girlfriend's kid's PSP onto it so he can play downloaded PSP games. I've briefly used the PS3's browser to check my email when my computer was being used by someone else. I've connected with friends to play online games on it, I'm using it to watch Blu Ray movies...so far, I'm satisfied with the purchase and makes me even more excited for the future games waiting to be released. Very similar to how you're enjoying yourself on the Wii. Very different experiences with the same outcome...we're enjoying ourselves.

According to your use of console sales, it correlates to how well it will do later on. In the past, it made sense if a console failed if it was priced too much because it wasn't as mainstream as it is today. But video games today rivals the movie industry. There's such a huge market. The price of the console today only affects the rate at which it is bought. People will still buy the PS3 but at a slower pace. Just last night, I read an article that it's estimated that about 700,000 PS3s have already been sold. As you can see, although it's not selling as fast as the Wiis, it's still selling. Sure, Sony didn't meet the 2 million mark it would have liked but the numbers are still going up.

Joined: A long time ago...

que that noise from the price is right when you lose....
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5721