Yeah, you know, it's not going to be XBox 360 or Playstation 3. Both of those companies got too worked up on full media than focusing on what a game console is supposed to be, fun. Nintendo Wii is the first step in the right direction in console gaming in years, focusing on fun and gameplay instead of graphics and multimedia. You know what I don't look for in a game console? Movie playing, HD Movie playing, Media Hub, Desktop Computing, and Your Mom. What I look for? Fun.

Wii = Fun

Others = Expensive and Boring

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Lord Steven
http://www.zcrew.org
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To Strive, To Seek, To Find, and Not to Yield

@Laser

Quote:

Another factor is piracy. Sad though it is to factor in, I think the ease with which games could be ripped off on the Xbox1 was a major factor in it's popularity (and the more rabid members of its fanbase). Ironically, it's looking like the PS3 could be on the side of the pirates this time around, with "alternative OS's" and the already semi-ripped blu-ray things happening. There's also a hard-drive as standard and a lot of emphasis on compatibility with 3rd party stuff.

Dude. A friend of mine already has his 360 chipped!!!
If piracy makes a console popular the 360 has won!!!
Hell, if you forgo XBox live forever all you need is a firmware upgrade to play ripped pirated games. This happened as much as six months ago. If anything Sony's Blue Ray game disks will be harder to copy and prohibitive in cost and will drive the pirates away.

As I see it, this generation wont go in Sony's favour at all. It might even be catastrophic for them. As a company they are getting it all wrong lately. They are not getting as many exclusive titles as they had in the previous generation, so ports will be the norm. Even looking at screenshots you'd be hard pressed to see much of a difference. Although it is quite alarming that detail appears to be missing from the PS3 versions, which I would hope for their sake does not become the norm, because if it does, word of mouth about it will not help.

Developers are spending immense budgets on their games, and therefore are going to make conservative choices to get a return on their investment. They will give development precedence to the platform with the greatest marketshare, which is the 360 that has been out for over a year. The PS3 will see many ports and for the most part they will be indistinguishable, be it in their lack, or advancement of detail. So a year late, and practically identical, with less games and a higher price tag, is not looking so good. It doesn't help that the drive in the PS3 is slower and thus the loading times are considerably longer. Also the unified memory has gotta free up a lot of things for the 360 devs.

The online play capability of the XBox is a great draw for me, although I haven't seen it in action yet. By all accounts MS are getting it right. And a bedroom coder could even get content onto the online store. I know even I was tempted with the announcement. Yes, it's through .NET but that wont matter too much when you can hit the hardware effectively. A far cry from PS3 Linux which doesn't give you much beyond 2d accelleration at the moment.

I'm a driving simulator fanatic and I absolutely love the GT series, and was looking forward to buying a PS3 and getting into the online play. Then delay after delay, and I decided to get an XBox instead. I'm now playing the original Forza on it, and it's so enhanced it's almost a next gen game. I think it kicks PGR3 for playability and isn't far off in graphics. I just bought the steering wheel, and that really is awesome. I'm really really happy with my XBox 360 guys. That's not to say you wouldn't be with a PS3 but then you don't need one to be happy either.

I'm also playing that Gears Of War game and the visuals are out of this world. I'm usually very calm during a game, but when that Beserker came right at me crashing through pillars, and you had to sneak around trying not to make a sound, it made me yelp in terror a couple of times. Honestly, while technically it may be bettered some day can they eye really notice that kind of stuff. We're practically in photorealism with these consoles. A pixel or texture difference here and there is hardly going to be noticed. It is not like the ST vs Amiga graphics divergence. I doubt any console will look like the clear winner to the naked eye graphically in this console generation.
Oh, I'm playing at 720p on my projector with an image of at least 100+ inches diagonally. It sux to be me. Absolutely awesome. I don't consider myself an MS fanboy by any means, but I have to say I really am impessed with the console so far.

Ok. Going back to my happy place now.

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Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@MikeB

You cant compare the PS3 to an Amiga from 1991.
A lot have happened with computer prices since then and obviously you are comparing apples and oranges.

The PS3 is an extremely expensive games console whether or not it is better than the xbox360. For people who only want to play games its to expensive!

It's quite easy to pick a next gen console (for non-fanboys that is).

Wii: if you want to play a little, and likes their control thingie ohh and want something cheap with good gameplay.

Xbox360:
if you only want to play games but want state of the art (no not the demo) sound and gfx at the cheapest possible price.

PS3:
For people who would like to have one of the best games console aswell as a blueray player and perhaps something to use as a desktop computer (or mediacentre) in their living room it is a nice bundle which seems priced pretty good actually.

I know it is simplified a LOT but IMHO thats what is to it for us non fanboys. For previous owners of xbox, PS2 and Gamecube I know there's probably a lot of feelings attached.

Ohh and this whole discussion is not interesting when Hyperion haven't talked about PS3 and OS4 yet

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@BigBentheAussie

Quote:

Dude. A friend of mine already has his 360 chipped!!! If piracy makes a console popular the 360 has won!!!

Hm, I wasn't really referring to the "chipping", since the PS2 (and PS1) had mod-chips too. The XBox1 had the hard-drive and even custom firmware images that made renting or borrowing a game and copying it to the HDD a piece of cake.

I'm not saying the XB360 wont also appeal to the pirates (as you've pointed out), but now the PS3 is at least on even ground since it has a HDD too, but it also has semi-official support for other OS's.

Here in the UK and much of Europe there isn't a huge amount of excitement over HD movies because few people have HD TV's. (720i is not a "proper" HD set in the true sense, I mean 1080p sets big enough to actually appreciate the difference.) However in America there is widespread focus on the proper HD stuff and the first format (HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray) that gets ripped will either be a) the most popular or b) the one that gets dropped by all the film studios. Which will happen we shall have to see, since both were allegedly hack-proof for five years.

@LordSteven

Quote:

LordSteven wrote: Yeah, you know, it's not going to be XBox 360 or Playstation 3. Both of those companies got too worked up on full media than focusing on what a game console is supposed to be, fun. Nintendo Wii is the first step in the right direction in console gaming in years, focusing on fun and gameplay instead of graphics and multimedia. You know what I don't look for in a game console? Movie playing, HD Movie playing, Media Hub, Desktop Computing, and Your Mom. What I look for? Fun. Wii = Fun Others = Expensive and Boring

I could not agree more.Consoles was invented for play games without the complexibility of computers.You insert the game switch on and play.And it had customized hardware.But today consoles are more and more complex to use and not differents than a computer without a keyboard

_________________
No PowerPC, No Fun
Make Amiga Great Again

@Fransexy

Quote:

I could not agree more.Consoles was invented for play games without the complexibility of computers.You insert the game switch on and play.And it had customized hardware.But today consoles are more and more complex to use and not differents than a computer without a keyboard

Pardon me, but where's the evidence to support this?

Turn on a Wii/360/PS3, insert a game, play, eject game.

What's different from earlier consoles?

And which components are the same? All three consoles have custom processors, motherboards, GPUs.

The only "standard" thing about them is supporting things like USB, standard hard drives, various storage cards etc. - and I can't for the life of me see how that is supposed to be a bad thing.

@LordSteven

If I go and buy a Wii today I will pay DKK 2200 for the machine itself and an additional DKK 300 for a component/RGB cable.

Just how is that cheap compared to the 360 at DKK 2599 which comes with 20 GB HD, a free game, dvd playback with upscaling for my lovely 24" monitor in up to 1080p, component cable and an online movie store I can rent moves from?

Don't get me wrong. I hope the Wii will be a massive success. Not because it's "more fun" than the other consoles, but because it's different - and different inspires new things. But cheap it is not.

Last edited by Trezzer on 09-Dec-2006 at 07:10 PM.
Last edited by Trezzer on 09-Dec-2006 at 07:10 PM.

@BigBentheAussie

Quote:

Dude. A friend of mine already has his 360 chipped!!! If piracy makes a console popular the 360 has won!!!

Not so if the "Fall Update fiasco" was anything to go by. This update was meant to contain code that "bricked" any chipped console. It however, had a nasty habit of bricking perfectly legitimate non-chipped XBox360's as well, much to the dismay of several thousands of owners who were then told that a $140 bill was needed to be paid to have the machine sent back for repair - and in the case of modified machines, that their console was knackered and a new one required to be purchased.

The update has since been replaced by a far smaller one that is not meant to affect non-modified machines, but to be honest, I haven't had the necessity to download and install it, and given I don't use XBox Live, I wasn't one of the many users nagged to install it when it was first rolled out.

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Test sig (new)

@Trezzer

Quote:

What's different from earlier consoles?

There are some differences though. Past consoles used cartridges, so you wouldn't have to deal much with load times, game patches and firmware / system software updates are also relatively a new thing. New systems also offer new features beyond just gaming, like various promoted online functionalities (chat, buying, etc), photo/video functionalities. Promotion of connecting handheld devices as remotes / game enhancements, content sharing, etc.

You don't have to make use of most of such abilities, but such uses are being promoted.

Last edited by MikeB on 09-Dec-2006 at 07:33 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

There are some differences though. Past consoles used cartridges, so you wouldn't have to deal much with load times, game patches and firmware / system software updates are also relatively a new thing. New systems also offer new features beyond just gaming, like various promoted online functionalities (chat, buying, etc), photo/video functionalities. Promotion of connecting handheld devices as remotes / game enhancements, content sharing, etc.

Huh? The last console to use a cartridge was the N64 and that was 10 years ago.

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@AMiGR

Quote:

The last console to use a cartridge was the N64 and that was 10 years ago.

1) That makes the N64 console an "earlier" console.
2) My Nintendo DS uses cartridges.

Another advantage of such media is that they don't get dirty or damaged that easily. Which IMO is a major Pro when small children are operating the gaming device.

Especially some US press seems to advocate the XBox 360 together with a HD DVD drive to people as their current TV sets don't support the improved visual quality of the PS3 yet.

I think that's a bit short-sighted, maybe your current TV set is not up to the task to experience such improvements, but who knows what you will own within a couple of years down the road?

Anyway here's another perspective:
http://www.tvpredictions.com/mdavis120906.htm

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @AMiGR Quote: The last console to use a cartridge was the N64 and that was 10 years ago. 1) That makes the N64 console an "earlier" console. 2) My Nintendo DS uses cartridges. Another advantage of such media is that they don't get dirty or damaged that easily. Which IMO is a major Pro when small children are operating the gaming device.

Exactly! I´m a fan of cartridge instead CD/DVD.It´s a console after all, all i want to do with it is play games, so any advantage that offer CD/DVD it´s irrelevant to their principal function.Remember that after all what is stored are 0s & 1s and memory these days are cheap (and it now would be even more cheap if the cartridge format was not abandoned).I see more pros on the game side of things in cartridges

_________________
No PowerPC, No Fun
Make Amiga Great Again

@MikeB

Quote:

Especially some US press seems to advocate the XBox 360 together with a HD DVD drive to people as their current TV sets don't support the improved visual quality of the PS3 yet.

The real problem is that the PS3 doesn't support their current sets while the 360 does.

Quote:

I think that's a bit short-sighted, maybe your current TV set is not up to the task to experience such improvements, but who knows what you will own within a couple of years down the road?

It's certainly not being short sighted as the 360 supports everything from 480i to 1080p and everything in between and it is fully capable of utilizing it - so far better than the PS3 and it will most likely continue to be that way.

Fun quote from the article:
Quote:

Xbox 360 is offering HD Pay Per View in 720p but it doesn't even have an HDMI or HDCP compliant output.

So now having DRM force-fed down your throat is something positive?

About your point about updates etc.: yes, I agree. My whole point was that it's not being forced upon you. If you wish, you can use the current consoles exactly like you did with the previous ones. There are other capabilities in them, though, like the Xbox Live Arcade (and I'd say that's pretty optimal for families with children as you'd need no discs, the games are easy to pick up and the 360 has built-in support for age-limitations that are attached per gamertag. In other words the children are protected while older players can knock themselves out with gore, too bouncy breasts etc.), movie downloads and all that.

Last edited by Trezzer on 09-Dec-2006 at 08:30 PM.

@_Steve_

Quote:

Not so if the "Fall Update fiasco" was anything to go by.

The fall update did impact about 1% of consoles, according to Microsoft. They are NOT charging $140 to repair they are fixing for free. Additionally, there is a 1 year warranty on the console so there's actually a 2nd method for most users.

As for fixing modified consoles -- It is standard for the industry to warranty and repair non-modified hardware. For example, TIVO won't cover fixes or repairs to TIVO hardware you've cracked the security seal on. So that is nothing different then anyone else.

@BigBentheAussie

If developers are making conservative choices would it not be the most conservative to optimize it for the worst performing hardware, Wii, and then port it to the better hardware? Why pick 1 when you can be neutral an do all 3? Acutally this gen it appears a bit better some ports, Call of Duty 3 is one example, seems to be slightly modifying for each console.

GoW -- just completed it on the normal level and going back to play the higher difficultes. It's a bit short, IMO, but none-the-less a very pretty and very good game.

@BrianK

I was aware of MS saying it was 1%, but 1% of more than 6 million machines is still a heck of a lot - 60,000 (hence I said to the dismay of several thousands of users).

Now as for warranties, the launch machines were granted a 1 year warranty, but those manufactured in 2006 it has been mentioned on several occasions only have a 90 day warranty (at least this seems to be the case in the US).

Much as I would not expect MS to repair a machine that had it's "warranty seal" broken as would be the case with a chipped machine, bricking it in the first place is I am sure illegal in many countries especially under the pretext of a software update. This would of course not have been aided by the fact their code was obviously faulty as it bricked many unmodified machines (some reported to have been purchased only a few days beforehand in some instances).

It was these 2006 manufactured machines whose customers were being told they would have to pay to have their machine sent back and looked at that I would object to, especially in light of the problem being down to an update they issue and recommend you install, and not the users fault.

I have read of at least one class action suit brought against MS for this update. All I can say is that I was glad I did not use XBox live, and had not come across this update beforehand.

I have only updated my XBox360 to be able to play some games where the game itself updates the machine, and to be able to play Lego Starwars from the original XBox.

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Test sig (new)

@vision

Quote:

What has this to do with Amiga?

You'll note it IS in 'General Computing and Technology,' and is certainly on topic here....even if Mike claimed he was going to be 'absent' for a while, but decided otherwise.

Don't want non-Amiga content? Easy, don't browse General Computing
Not to mention, obviously, we DO have a lot of console fans here as well, that ARE interested.

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Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@BrianK

Quote:

Sort of related -- Nov 06 Console sales

I think overall those are excellent US figures for November 2006.

Sony sold in total:

197,000 + 664,000 + 413,000 = 1,274,000 game consoles

Nintendo's performance is even better:

918,000 + 641,000 + 476,000 + 64,000 = 2,072,000

But December will be the best month!

Quote:

Best selling Nov game

'Gears of War' did very well, but in total PS2 games sold 22% more than XBox 360 and PC games combined in the US!

Noteworthy is that Microsoft doesn't seem to understand and support the Japanese market very well, I think the Japanese arel not impressed by 'Gears of War'.

Needless to say their gaming products will most likely continue to perform extremely bad over in Japan, for instance the PS3 as well as the Wii overtook total XBox 360 sales in a matter of hours.

@wegster

Quote:

even if Mike claimed he was going to be 'absent' for a while, but decided otherwise

AMiGR apologized, so I took some comfort in this. Please don't drag this thread off topic as well...

Last edited by MikeB on 10-Dec-2006 at 02:58 AM.
Last edited by MikeB on 10-Dec-2006 at 02:57 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Noteworthy is that Microsoft doesn't seem to understand and support the Japanese market very well, I think the Japanese arel not impressed by 'Gears of War'.

Nor is Gears of War aimed at the Japanese Market. Blue Dragon, on the other hand, is. According to initial reports all Blue Dragon bundles have been snapped up very fast and there was a lot of japanese media coverage of the launch where there were long lines of eager buyers. Blue Dragon was number two on Famitsu's most wanted list.

Lost Planet is another title made for the Japanese market. In fact it's made by Capcom who are Halo fans and they want to make a Halo for Japan, because Japanese typically don't play first person shooters, so they're making it third person, adding monsters and mech suits.

Another big title for Japan that's near launch is Lost Odyssey. Besides that Enchanted Arms has been out for a while and will soon see a PS3 release too.