PS3 x Revolution x Xbox-360

[Itachikun]

Microsoft are trying tactics here. They are going to release Halo 3 by the time the PS3 hits the shelves. Man, if only Microsoft had released the X-box 360 when the PS3 came out AND released Halo 3 with it, it MAY have been a better thing for them. (Not that Im cheering Microsoft on).

Oh well, 4 months to go....
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Honda Cb1300 Specifications

[xxxplizit]

Originally Posted by Cueil

While the Japanese game market grows smaller the US game market is getting bigger and bigger and the European market is fast gaining on the Japanese market for the number 2 game market.

Somewhat true, but not exact. Either it's more like non-Japanese market (U.S., etc) growing a LOT bigger comapred to Japanese growth in general or the fact that the gaming market as a whole is somewhat declining.

Originally Posted by Cueil

in contrast regular video cards rarely push past 70%

That is correct. It is up to the "developers" to ensure that their game pushes the way they want it to be by taking advantage of what the system(s) can do. Othewise, the majority of games will look like their predecessors in terms of graphical power (let's just say that graphics are about to reach its peak soon for the human eye to comprehend). Because many spectate on the amount of polygons/triangles used, how many games actually pump THAT MUCH?

Originally Posted by DarkWarrior

I'm probably one of the few people that think that the remote control rocks.

You are not alone.

The controller does rock and is revolutionary. I can see SOO much potential with this controller, if developers are able to use its potential to the fullest.

Originally Posted by Itachikun

Microsoft are trying tactics here. They are going to release Halo 3 by the time the PS3 hits the shelves. Man, if only Microsoft had released the X-box 360 when the PS3 came out AND released Halo 3 with it, it MAY have been a better thing for them. (Not that Im cheering Microsoft on).

Oh well, 4 months to go....

Strategically, that is more of a bigger gamble releasing the 360 the same time the PS3 comes out.

The X-Box 360 releasing their system early was a good decision mainly because this gives them a head start to take consumers away from the market as they would spend money on this and not have money on the PS3. Of course, with High-Def being a somewhat craze to the market, the 360 was the first to take advantage of it.

Now, if it were to be released the same time as the PS3, it would give Microsoft a major disadvantage. Considering that the PS3, spec-wise, is more powerful than the X-Box 360, consumers will target the "bigger bait".

[arias]

Originally Posted by Cueil

I will totally contridict you... Sony's PS1 was easy to develope for the PS2 was almost as bad as the Saturn and really towards the end you see a shift to Xbox... slowly more and more devs are moving over because in the future Japanese only games will be non-existant and there will only be games with world wide appeal. While the Japanese game market grows smaller the US game market is getting bigger and bigger and the European market is fast gaining on the Japanese market for the number 2 game market.

Your aforementioned "shift" towards the Xbox is illusionary -- it's just that developers who were initially skeptical of developing for the Xbox have their fears alleviated by various releases (Halo, DoA, Ninja Gaiden etc). This doesn't mean that they now PREFER to develop for the Xbox rather than the Playstation, which would really be suicide considering how the PS2's consumer base is roughly quadruple that of the Xbox.

Even if developing were harder, and more expensive (unlikely), you have four times as many possible consumers. Therefore, the "shift" you're talking about is really not a "shift" of power but rather the Xbox taking a hold of the market by showing its reliability and usefulness. Sony remains incredibly strong. So, despite the PS2 being quite difficult to develop for (compared to the GC, DC and Xbox), the potential payoff is much greater. You just have to see how Capcom signed their RE series as an "exclusive" for the Gamecube, and then pulled out of that deal when it became apparent the GC was not going to challenge the PS2. Recently, I have also noted how the first-week sales of RE4 on the PS2 exceeded total sales of RE4 on the GC for almost a year.

You also fail to understand the importance of the Japanese market FOR JAPANESE DEVELOPERS. It is long established, of course, that even games like Square's Final Fantasy series sell more overseas and worldwide than they do in Japan. This is the same case for the Metal Gear Solid series -- they sell particularly well in Europe. But this is irrelevant because Japanese developers *have* to sell well in Japan, because they are situated in Japan. For various nationalistic, or economic reasons (for one, the tax structures could be a factor) the Japanese market remains important. If this were not true, you wouldn't see Microsoft trying aggressively to break into the Japanese market -- they are attempting this by having lured Sakaguchi and his Mistwalker studio to developing Japanese RPGs for the Xbox360.

Japanese-only games will CONTINUE to exist. This is a complex issue, but the short of it is that developing "worldwide appeal" games usually require large studios (this is of course, not true for puzzle games and other such simple stuff). Of course, there are a TON of Japanese games that do not cross over to American shores, but most of us are not aware of this because only relatively heavyweight titles make it over (the Final Fantasies, the Tales of Phantasias, the Metal Gears, the Katamaris).. There are probably games that aim for niche markets in Japan; maybe like one that aims for a particular type of otaku or such. It's arguably cheaper to produce a game without having to translate it to other languages and localize them to various regions. This comes with massive, added advertising costs, with no guarantee of success. Might as well succeed well in a small concentrated market, then try and go big and wide and fail.

[Itachikun]

I missed the DreamCast

Maybe Sega will bring a console one day. Let us all pray.

Oh and good arguement. Im surprised that RE4 for PS2 exceeded that of the GC. Where do you get your information or sources from?
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Ferrari F1 643 Specifications

[arias]

Originally Posted by Itachikun

I missed the DreamCast

Maybe Sega will bring a console one day. Let us all pray.

Oh and good arguement. Im surprised that RE4 for PS2 exceeded that of the GC. Where do you get your information or sources from?

http://www.m-create.com/eng/e_ranking.html (but it only posts the weekly newest so you won't find the archives here..)

and

http://www.the-magicbox.com (It's somewhere in the archives, I think..)


To make it clear, the sales of RE4 PS2 Japan > RE4 GC Japan. The data for RE4 PS2 sales in North America are not available. I'd list the exact pages but it's 6am and I want to get to bed Also, I had them posted before the Asuki boards went bonkers.. But the digits are roughly in the ~220,000 area. And, the comparison, is of course, for the Japanese market only.. The total cumulative sales of RE4 including America/Canada has exceeded 500,000 (http://www.gamershell.com/news/22577.html).. Figures for the sales of the PS2 version in North America is not yet available.


Anyways, I hardly think Sega will ever venture into the console market again.. but who knows? Right now I'm glad I'll be able to play their games on the other consoles, though

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Cueil

IOn the SPEs and the way they work I will not claim to be an expert, but from your explenation I will go on a limb and say I probably know a little bit more than you. Your idea of multicore/multithreaded is something that Microsoft is going into sony's PS3 will only have one multithreaded core and that will be the PPE or the main processor that will be running at 3.2ghz running double threaded. The SPEs are extreamly powerfully when it comes to streaming data like video, but they have no real branch prediction and their memory is very small which doesn't help with branchy thing like AI.

I'm not a programmer, I'll say it flat out. The only programming I've done was basics with C and FORTRAN; if you know anything about programming, you'll know that I learned one archaic language and, by deducation, couldn't have gotten very far with the other. I'm mostly going off of what I hear other programmers complaining about, from hardware reviews and benchmarks, and so forth. I mentioned the programming factors in my previous post partly from what I've observed in benchmarks. A dual-core Athlon processor could lose out to a higher-clocked single-core Pentium 4 in terms of game performance because games aren't coded to make use of parallel processing. They're single-process applications, and thus the clock speed matters more than the ability to execute instructions in parallel. If and when coders start to make use of the extra cores, then the performance gains - according to AMD fanboys, anyway - will be enormous, and then Intel's higher-clocked, single-core processors would be crushed.

Of course, if we know anything from the Intel vs. AMD battles, it's that pure clock rate doesn't count as much as processor and board architecture. I suppose you could say that both Microsoft and Sony gambled a bit. We're relatively familiar with the Power architecture that the G5's are based on, but we've never really heard about how it stocks up when it comes to gaming. Sony is going with a processor architecture that's completely new. It seems to me that it fully embraces parallel processing, but since my coding knowledge is limited, I can't say for certain.

The Cell is only diffrent because of it's design and it's likely to be crushed in the long run by AMD and Intel's future designs.

I don't think anyone expects the Cell to be timeless. Despite the power potential that Sony keeps throwing around, its usage is very limited, too. We wouldn't see it for use in the computers we use today for a few reasons that I don't fully remember; I believe the limited branch prediction that you mentioned was one of them.

But, I'll say it again: where we are now, things have frequently been done one way. The only applications that I know of that were capable of harnessing even multiple processors were server applications. Even if you were a game developer telling me that the Cell is destined to fail, I wouldn't believe you. It's too new (both the processor itself and the concept of coding for parallel processing), and there's too little knowledge about how to effectively draw out the power.

[grey_moon]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

It seems to me that it fully embraces parallel processing, but since my coding knowledge is limited, I can't say for certain.


I don't think anyone expects the Cell to be timeless. Despite the power potential that Sony keeps throwing around, its usage is very limited, too. We wouldn't see it for use in the computers we use today for a few reasons that I don't fully remember; I believe the limited branch prediction that you mentioned was one of them.

From what I remember reading the long term plan of Sony et al for the Cell, is that it will be embedded into every CE device in the digital home and all the devices will be able to pool together their resources in a cluster like way when they are not busy. This would give this "system" the ability to parallise on the bus and on the wire depending on the problem to be solved.

Remember it's not just Sony, but IBM and Toshiba too, who are pushing the Cell and the 3 of them together are scary...

*** Bleh take the on the wire clustering with a pinch of salt coz I can't remember where I read it and can't find the source ***

[arias]

I think everyone needs to get abit of perspective on this :

Sony designed the Cell for the PS3 to be a HOME "SUPERENTERTAINMENT" CENTER. Not a gaming machine. As such, it would almost definitely be quite hard to program for, and suck to some degree.

[SlugZilla]

Originally Posted by arias

I think everyone needs to get abit of perspective on this :

Sony designed the Cell for the PS3 to be a HOME "SUPERENTERTAINMENT" CENTER. Not a gaming machine. As such, it would almost definitely be quite hard to program for, and suck to some degree.

So how will that differ from the PS2? It is a gaming machine, among other things.

[arias]

Originally Posted by SlugZilla

So how will that differ from the PS2? It is a gaming machine, among other things.

Ack.

That is not the point. The PS2 was designed for the purpose of gaming. That is, it was designed as a gaming machine.

The PS3 was desgined by Sony to be a super home entertainment center. It was not designed solely as a gaming machine as its function.

Is that clear enough?


I am in no way defending Sony -- I think they shot themselves in the foot for this one.

[grey_moon]

Originally Posted by arias

Ack.

That is not the point. The PS2 was designed for the purpose of gaming. That is, it was designed as a gaming machine.

The PS3 was desgined by Sony to be a super home entertainment center. It was not designed solely as a gaming machine as its function.

Is that clear enough?


I am in no way defending Sony -- I think they shot themselves in the foot for this one.

I think one way of putting it is that the PS3 could be Sony's "hub" of the digital home whilst Windows Media Center is M$ equivalent. I was really surprised that they didn't try to push the Xbox360 into this role, but I guess that M$ are concentrating on beating Sony on the console front and don't want to be distracted on a very much theoretical market. The CE market is very brutal, it's very very difficult to make a profit on selling CE devices, and M$ doesn't have any real experience in this.

Originally Posted by arias

I think everyone needs to get abit of perspective on this :

Sony designed the Cell for the PS3 to be a HOME "SUPERENTERTAINMENT" CENTER. Not a gaming machine. As such, it would almost definitely be quite hard to program for, and suck to some degree.

This actually is a very important point.

The Cell is designed to be scalable, so what is made for the PS3 would be far more powerful then what will be in the new HDTVs and far less powerful then whats in IBM's new kick arse Top500 super computer...

How hard it will be to program will depend on what tools are made available for it and how much potential of the HW the programmer wants to bring out. There is this Japanese super computer "hacker" who optimises routines specificially for the architecture the program is running on switch by switch by hand to squeeze out that extra bit of power.

[Sety]

Way I see it......

Nintendo- GCN-
They literally shot themselves in the foot, lack of online support and in general everything...also lack of 3rd party support hurt them severely. N64 was pure gaming gold in terms of games but GCN did lack any real major titles. However what did hurt them the most was the 'kiddie' toymaker image. Sony literally beat the snot out of them through sheer bullshitting and trying to be 'cool.'

I kid you not...the quality of the PS2 is horrible in every aspect. What they will need to do is strengthen their marketting and third party support, but most importantly start getting into that European market they've neglected forever. They will need to help 3rd party developers alot more though...the main fanbase of Nintendo consoles do have the tendency to not bother with 3rd party titles because many are generic.....


Nintendo- Revolution-
A step in the right direction although their marketing is still weak, they need to get the fuck out there and HYPE, HYPE, HYPE. However giving DVD support (though maybe far too late), strong emphasis on online service this time and lots of highly innovative ideas so far are good. They need to seriously start shedding their image though and get into the European market.

The problem now for them is power....being last of the new consoles and supposedly the weakest doesn't help them in advertising or the long run. However they have a strong history of very high quality hardware...not many are aware but the GCN in terms of performance actually matched XBox mainly because GCN works at very high efficiency while XBox runs at low efficiency but its mainly sheer processing power that carries XBox through. Interestingly enough, contrary to belief....GCN was about twice as successful as the XBox


Sony- PS2-
Anyone who calls this a quality console is quite frankly uninformed......literally early sales were driven simply because of a trend for cheap DVD players and PS2 delivered this. But the hardware is inferior, Toshiba who manufactured the console failed to meet specs too, Sony inflated their figures too when giving out specs and always have done so.

But they dominated...simply because they had the image and the third party support and advertising power, the ammount of people who are unaware of the second rate hardware PS2 runs on and how long it took before anyone could get it to do what they wanted due to the difficult to use Dev kits is amazing.

Marketing and that 'in' image Sony have and getting the large early userbase to attract 3rd party developers carried them through, but most importantly the very badly enforced anti-pirating rules. They lost alot on PS2 contrary to belief simply because it was pirates galore and if you own a PS2 and haven't chipped in anyway I'd almost say you're lying. Now they also finally have something powerful (although its already proven they've been bullshitting again about figures) they could go through.....but I reckon they've gotten arrogant with the price tag of PS3....


Sony- PS3-
They've been bullshitting like hell, inflating their figures and being arrogant about the pricetag believing to create something people will want to work to get at...in the words of Ken Kutaragi himself.
However hardware wise it looks very good for them...heavy power almost equal to a supercomputer of sorts...THAT is if the figures add up....which don't.

Strong initial showing means jackshit all truthfully since all the trailers were purely FMV and none were actual gameplay. It was confirmed that they lied about none of them being pre-rendered graphics but they've gotten the media attention which is good for them.

Blu-ray will be the make or break for them...it could set a brand new media industry standard and if it does go through...it will be game, set and match. (Somebody must remember Beta-max vs VCR right?) Though in all honesty they are honestly not advertising a game machine here......in fact its almost impossible to call it a console now (who the hell advertises by saying it can run Windows XP?!)
The runaway success of the last gen though may carry them completely through and dominance of the third party developers and European market. Only thing though interestingly enough is they've locked in some developers who have wanted to leave for a long time through many means....their CELL chip though is their trump card, however their success may also eventually depend on how fast the console is hacked.


Microsoft- XBox 360-
Since its already out...I'll skip last gen....although they did come bottom last gen but did open up the market.....however they've been doing quite frankly........abysmal so far.
The Xbox 360 did beyond awful in JPN barely selling 28% of their stock and the actual sales over here in the West meant little since their stocks were so limited. Although they have the paved the way for simultaneous releases. Releasing so early could go either way......although contrary to belief, 360 does have the power to go head to head directly with PS3. Anyone who believes otherwise is just a raving Sony lunatic who would believe any large figure they throw at them.

However what I'am impressed by MS which Nintendo is following suit is to try cut down regional waits by doing full simultaneous launches for games all over the world. In the long term, I only see the PC nerd junkie style people buying this console....but theres alot of them and enough to get this going the right way.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Sety

I kid you not...the quality of the PS2 is horrible in every aspect.

General statement with no support. This isn't a writing class, I know, but if you're trying to make an aggressive statement like that I'd like to hear your reasons. You give a few later, but the fact that you don't back it up all at once makes it seem like you're completely anti-Sony. It just makes it harder to take what you're saying against them.

Sony- PS2-
Anyone who calls this a quality console is quite frankly uninformed......literally early sales were driven simply because of a trend for cheap DVD players and PS2 delivered this.

I wonder if it was because gamers wanted to play games that came out for PlayStation 2 only?

... the ammount of people who are unaware of the second rate hardware PS2 runs on and how long it took before anyone could get it to do what they wanted due to the difficult to use Dev kits is amazing.

I don't think anyone here knows what's inside of a PS2 beyond the DVD drive. Furthermore, I don't think anyone cares. We're consumers, not developers. If the game looks good and plays well, we're happy. If the system physically lasts us for a long time and doesn't break down, we're happy. That's the market.

Sony- PS3-
They've been bullshitting like hell, inflating their figures and being arrogant about the pricetag believing to create something people will want to work to get at...in the words of Ken Kutaragi himself.

Agreed. Sony has even stated that the PS3 may be so amazing that it'll have a lifespan for two game console product cycles. In reality, that's most likely a combination of overestimating their product and underestimating how fast technology moves.

Microsoft- XBox 360-
...
... although contrary to belief, 360 does have the power to go head to head directly with PS3. Anyone who believes otherwise is just a raving Sony lunatic who would believe any large figure they throw at them.

How can you even make a statement like that? We don't even know what the Cell processor is capable of in terms of real-world performance.

Nice long post. I just had those gripes with some of your points and lack of support/reasoning.

[grey_moon]

Heh who voted all 3? I wish I could afford all 3

[xxxplizit]

Originally Posted by arias

Ack.

That is not the point. The PS2 was designed for the purpose of gaming. That is, it was designed as a gaming machine.

The PS3 was desgined by Sony to be a super home entertainment center. It was not designed solely as a gaming machine as its function.

Is that clear enough?


I am in no way defending Sony -- I think they shot themselves in the foot for this one.

What would be the point of Sony marking that system Playstation if it was not designed solely as a gaming machine as its function? Sounds a bit far-fetched if that were the case considering the mass amounts of support that the PS2 gets.

[arias]

Originally Posted by xxxplizit

What would be the point of Sony marking that system Playstation if it was not designed solely as a gaming machine as its function? Sounds a bit far-fetched if that were the case considering the mass
amounts of support that the PS2 gets.

Sony has released press reports that it's goal for the PS3 is for it to permeate *all* households (not just gaming households) and become a home entertainment device. Which is why the Cell was not designed for just specifically gaming in mind, but a myriad of functions.

http://www.game-machines.com/consoles/ps3.php

Kutaragi also commented that the PlayStation 3 will not be solely devoted to video gaming. As the PlayStation 2 branched out slightly with it's DVD video capability, the PS3 will embed itself even further into the home entertainment system. The console will have connectivity features allowing it to connect to other Sony devices creating a home entertainment network (which would presumably connect to the internet.

It's not far-fetched. You did not read the multiple reports they've issued.

[Soconfused]

Originally Posted by Sety

Sony- PS2-
Anyone who calls this a quality console is quite frankly uninformed......literally early sales were driven simply because of a trend for cheap DVD players and PS2 delivered this. But the hardware is inferior, Toshiba who manufactured the console failed to meet specs too, Sony inflated their figures too when giving out specs and always have done so.

But they dominated...simply because they had the image and the third party support and advertising power, the ammount of people who are unaware of the second rate hardware PS2 runs on and how long it took before anyone could get it to do what they wanted due to the difficult to use Dev kits is amazing.

Marketing and that 'in' image Sony have and getting the large early userbase to attract 3rd party developers carried them through, but most importantly the very badly enforced anti-pirating rules. They lost alot on PS2 contrary to belief simply because it was pirates galore and if you own a PS2 and haven't chipped in anyway I'd almost say you're lying. Now they also finally have something powerful (although its already proven they've been bullshitting again about figures) they could go through.....but I reckon they've gotten arrogant with the price tag of PS3....

Even if such a statement is true, does it even matter? The PS2 sold tons, not because of how good it's software was but because of it's awesome games. The ps2 could of been running off of 2 SNES's....and no one would care as long as the games were good.

In my eyes, your entire posts just made you look like your typical Sony hater. You made alot of rash statements and assumptions and didn't back them up with much.

[Cueil]

Sony was the only console on the market for a whole year... that was it... nothing to challange them and when you're the only system that doesn't leave much of a choice for the developers. Things will change this generation and if you don't see the shift you're stupid. Sony wont have a 70 percent domination of the console market and I think in the end you'll see the Playstation brand take a beating when compaired to what they have done so far. And remember people... Nintendo use to rule the Japanese market. It's time to go back to the old days when there were at least 2 strong consoles competeing head to head and shoulder to shoulder. If you don't want the dominance to end then you can't never call yourself a real gamer.

[Cueil]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

General statement with no support. This isn't a writing class, I know, but if you're trying to make an aggressive statement like that I'd like to hear your reasons. You give a few later, but the fact that you don't back it up all at once makes it seem like you're completely anti-Sony. It just makes it harder to take what you're saying against them.



I wonder if it was because gamers wanted to play games that came out for PlayStation 2 only?


I don't think anyone here knows what's inside of a PS2 beyond the DVD drive. Furthermore, I don't think anyone cares. We're consumers, not developers. If the game looks good and plays well, we're happy. If the system physically lasts us for a long time and doesn't break down, we're happy. That's the market.


Agreed. Sony has even stated that the PS3 may be so amazing that it'll have a lifespan for two game console product cycles. In reality, that's most likely a combination of overestimating their product and underestimating how fast technology moves.



How can you even make a statement like that? We don't even know what the Cell processor is capable of in terms of real-world performance.

Nice long post. I just had those gripes with some of your points and lack of support/reasoning.

Yes we do... it's not hard to go look up everything all the stuff has been released to the public already. I'm sure arstech and anandtech have something on them

[Itachikun]

Ya, I remember that I read something about the Cell chip being, not only in the PS3, but in other entertainment systems, like television, DVD players, etc. They created the PS3 as a gaming system to co-op with the cell.

Then again, looking back in the past. I wondered what would have happened if Nintendo and Sony were together, like they were in the past

(Brief history: The Playstation was going to be an add on for the SNES system, some debates occurred and Sony pulled out and released as a console.)

Though it would be cool to see them side by side.

As for Nintendo, I think that the N64 ruled, while the NGC flunked, was because of one company RARE. They produced unbelievable games on the N64, from Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, to Conker BFD 64 and Donkey Kong. They have created a huge new world of gameplay. I always wished they would stay by Nintendo. I wonder how they feel right now after seeing the Revolution and not being too successful with the X-Box 360.
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GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD