PS3 600 dollars? Sony is on crack

[Vigilance]

Yeah, the X-Box is a big ole brick of a system... and the 360 is worse... that thing is a weapon. It could kill someone lol.

Chuck

 

[Vocenoctum]

Yeah, the X-Box is a big ole brick of a system... and the 360 is worse... that thing is a weapon. It could kill someone lol.

Chuck

Then Japan better beware, since the PS3 is bigger...

http://www.gamesradar.com/us/xbox36...?articleId=2006081195220737049&sectionId=1006

Looks like more Wii Points then, eh?

 

[Vigilance]

Then Japan better beware, since the PS3 is bigger...

http://www.gamesradar.com/us/xbox36...?articleId=2006081195220737049&sectionId=1006

Looks like more Wii Points then, eh?

Wow... I had no idea. I didn't think anything was going to be more clunky than that damn X-box 360 "power brick" *ever*.

But yeah, despite the heat I have taken in this thread for not being a Sony clone and chanting that they will continue to dominate like an automaton, I am a Sony customer. And while I understand some of SONY'S reasons for the strategy they're pursuing, I just want good games, and the Wii games have so far appealed to me more.

When you factor in that I will probably be able to buy a Wii and like 8 games for the price of a PS3 and one controller... it sort of becomes a no brainer to me (again assuming the games are good, and a whole host of Wii games look NICE).

Chuck

 

[Vigilance]

John Romero rates the PS3 last

Well it looks like I'm not TOTALLY alone

John Romero, co-creator of Doom, rates the Wii first because of the controller and the ease of designing for the system, then the X-box because of the X-box live online environment and the ability to deliver games directly to consumers, followed by the PS 3.

The podcast is here (the transcript is not the whole interview and the comments about the different next gen platforms are only in the audio):

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6156985/index.html?tag=topslot;action;1

 

[TwistedBishop]

The hits just keep on comin' from Sony.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/09/03/high-end-ps3-shipping-without-hdmi-cable/

 

[Kaodi]

Maybe I Am The One On Crack

I keep telling myself that I will probably get a Wii fairly early on in this cycle, and maybe a PS3 mid-way through or later. I have only ever had Nintendo products (NES, SNES, GameBoy, GameBoy Advance and GameCube), but I profess to be at least partially a great fan of RPGs. When I decided to get a GameCube over a PS2, it was part loyalty, part the fact that at that time, StarCraft: Ghost was to come out on GameCube, and I really wanted that game (so much VapourWare... at least StarCraft II may finally be coming!). I love Metroid Prime 1 & 2, and Metroid Prime 3 is a prime motivating factor for me really wanting a Wii, especially with the new controller. HOWEVER... when I go to the store, and see all the love PS2 gets from RPGs and SquareEnix, it hurts, it really, really hurts. And I don't even play FF games at all! A lot of the gimmicks for the few decent RPGs for GameCube have thrown me off, like a card based combat system, or 2d plane combat with movement in only one direction (which I might not mind if I tried it out first, but I don't rent games). What it really comes down for for me, is whether Wii is really going to come through in the games department... I don't want to have to choose between a couple RPG titles (Tales of Symphonia, FF: Crystal Chronicles, Baten Kaitos), or any other geek genre for that matter. I want at least a dozen quality choices. To loosely quote a certain protagonist from a certain iteration of a certain giant robot series... " Neither innovation alone, nor software alone. "

 

[drothgery]

Nationalisim is highly overated when it comes to the failure of the X-Box in japan. Microsoft succeeded in exterminating the indigenous PC98 series of machines/os from NEC that ruled the market over there as recently as 12-15 yrs ago.

RPGs one of the most popular categories of games in Japan (ever notice how most PS2 rpgs are ports of japanese games) were almost unknown on the orignal x-box.

Err... the lack of Japanese RPGs on the original Xbox is almost entirely due to nationalism. Microsoft certainly offered more for Square than Sony did (when they bought 20% of the company) or than Enix did (when they merged later), and if Square had allowed Microsoft to buy the company, then they'd have all the Japanese RPGs they needed. Moreover, KotOR is one of the all-time great RPGs.

The massive size of the console, also told against it, a lot of people live in apartments that are tiny by american standards.

This is bunk. An Xbox is smaller than an average old-school VCR, only maybe a third bigger than a PS2, and since it's going to be sitting under a TV that takes up considerably more space, it's pretty meaningless.

The remarkable thing about the X-box and to a somewhat larger extent the 360 is the extent to which they have succeeded. Microsoft historically has failed horribly with at least the first two versions of a product, if not well beyond that. (There are VERY GOOD reasons nobody remembers a version of windows prior to 3.11) To have run even a distant second with their first itteration of a product is a mind boggling success by their standards.

Of course, everyone remembers Excel right from 1.0, .NET took off right from 1.0, the BASIC interpreters (later compilers, and still later Visual Basic) that Microsoft got started with were decent from the get-go, and there are a few more counterexamples to toss their way. MS hasn't always gotten things right on the first try, but most of what's now the core of MS (NT-based Windows, Office [or rather the initial components for the Mac], their development tools, and SQL Server) has been pretty respectable right from the initial release.

 

[Vocenoctum]

But yeah, despite the heat I have taken in this thread for not being a Sony clone and chanting that they will continue to dominate like an automaton, I am a Sony customer. And while I understand some of SONY'S reasons for the strategy they're pursuing, I just want good games, and the Wii games have so far appealed to me more.

It's funny really, but the design ideas behind the marketing and such really do help pinpoint things. They once said XBox focused on the "male 25-40" demographic... well that's me! Nintendo focused more on younger gamers, and their games felt too "kiddie" for me.

This time around, I already have a 360. I think the Wii has good potential since Nintendo seems to be focusing more on the games, rather than focusing on hype, but then they have to get all oddball with controller and such. Oddball can be good, or bad, we'll see.

From my perception, I like XBoxery, since the franchises are in general newer. They don't carry a lot of baggage. A lot of the PS games I've seen owe more to nostalgia IMO than to good gameplay. Throw in the Japanese Style games which are often hit or miss, and the titles just don't appeal to me much. The Wii has a similar problem in dredging so often to the nostalgia well that it doesn't draw me in.

 

[Rackhir]

Err... the lack of Japanese RPGs on the original Xbox is almost entirely due to nationalism. Microsoft certainly offered more for Square than Sony did (when they bought 20% of the company) or than Enix did (when they merged later), and if Square had allowed Microsoft to buy the company, then they'd have all the Japanese RPGs they needed. Moreover, KotOR is one of the all-time great RPGs.

I suspect a lot of Microsofts problems with Japanese developers come back to their generally tone deaf approch to the japanese market or it could simply be a justified waryness at dealing with a company that has ripped off and nuked a number of their "partners" in the past. However, Sony doesn't seem like it is doing too much better on that score of late. I've noted with interest that Bandai has announced a number of Mobile Suit Gundam games for the 360, which the previous playstations got the lion's share of.

This is bunk. An Xbox is smaller than an average old-school VCR, only maybe a third bigger than a PS2, and since it's going to be sitting under a TV that takes up considerably more space, it's pretty meaningless.

So, you've lived in Japan for several years like I have and have been in a number of Japanese homes? And spent a significant amount of time poking around Akihabara looking at what they sell there?

How big vcrs were 25 years ago, isn't really important to products that started being sold only about 6 yrs ago. And I can tell you that even when I was there 15 yrs ago most of the vcrs were a LOT smaller than the xbox is. Hell even the vcr my college roomates had 18 yrs ago was a lot smaller than the xbox is.

Of course, everyone remembers Excel right from 1.0, .NET took off right from 1.0, the BASIC interpreters (later compilers, and still later Visual Basic) that Microsoft got started with were decent from the get-go, and there are a few more counterexamples to toss their way. MS hasn't always gotten things right on the first try, but most of what's now the core of MS (NT-based Windows, Office [or rather the initial components for the Mac], their development tools, and SQL Server) has been pretty respectable right from the initial release.

Basic was of course their original product, but considering that their original basic was something that had to be entered in assembler into the MITS Altair and wasn't a language created by them, there was limited scope to produce a truly awful product. Excel was essentially at least a version 2.0 product given that they'd already created multiplan (a very forgetable spreadsheet, I had a copy). They also had Lotus 1-2-3 to crib off of. Word and Excel didn't really reach it's stranglehold until they started bundling it as Microsoft Office v 4.2 IIRC.

Windows NT was a bad joke until version 4 (actually the 2nd/2.5 version of the product). I remember them trumpeting how it had recieved some government security rating, which sounded impressive until you looked at the small print and noticed that it only recieved that rating if it was completely isolated from all other computers and equipment. Rather a drawback for a "networked" OS. And arguably didn't fully hit it's stride until it morphed into windows 2000. Which is the first version of windows to really be regarded well in terms of stability and performance.

SQL server from Microsoft was version 7 before it started being really well regarded. And was again not a product they originally created.

.Net, was originally going to be a do everything, tie everything together, product of unclear purpose, function and scope. It has since been relegated to being a nearly forgotten piece of plumbing for the operating system. Not my definition of a runaway success.

 

[Vigilance]

I think the best thing Microsoft has done from a product standpoint has been Direct X. I have heard several developers say that PC gaming wouldn't really exist as we know it if not for Direct X.

So as someone who works on his computer, MS scores pretty well with me and as someone who games on his puter, they score well with me.

Never owned an X-box, though when/if I get a HD tv I will probably go to the 360 for my "next gen" console.

This is all assuming there isn't already some OTHER new console out by then

Chuck