@MikeB

Quote:

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.

There are still more 360s in Japan than PS3s. There is a total of approximately 190000 PS3s in Japan and that's slightly less than the number of 360s. Mind you I fully expect PS3 to steamroll 360 for a good while yet in Japan - possibly permanently. It is a Sony land after all. The next couple of weeks should see 360 sales accelerate in Japan too, though. However, it's just the first step towards winning over Japanese gamers.

The Wii will most likely trounce them both though.

@MikeB
Likewise RE: off-topic, as well as take issues with Staff to PM.

I'm done, and hope you are as well.

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

@Trezzer

It will be interesting to see if this will make a big impact. Blue dragon is a good example of how games benefit from HD media coming supplied on 3 DVDs already.

I believe the Final Fantasy series will remain the most important games for Japan though.

@MikeB
Aren't they now releasing multiple FFs soon-ish?

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

@wegster

You'll find the terribly exciting near-launch list here

@MikeB

Quote:

I believe the Final Fantasy series will remain the most important games for Japan though.

Final Fantasy may have had more games, but Dragon Quest is the bigger series.

As for Blue Dragon, we'll see how big it gets. It's got people from Final Fantasy, Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger behind it, so I'm sure it'll be at least rather successful.

The game is very FMV heavy and judging from film clips so far I'm actually puzzled as to why they've done pre-rendered graphics instead of doing it realtime, since the in-game graphics are nearly indistinguishable from the FMV, and fitting the game on a single disc. Either way it doesn't matter much in a JRPG which is typically rather linear.

Last edited by Trezzer on 10-Dec-2006 at 04:56 AM.
Last edited by Trezzer on 10-Dec-2006 at 04:53 AM.

@Trezzer

Quote:

Final Fantasy may have had more games, but Dragon Quest is the bigger series.

I am not so sure abou that. Final Fantasy series sold over 70 million copies worldwide, and Dragon Quest sold over 40 million copies worldwide.

Japanese Top 10 "Favorite Games of All Time" Japanese poll by Famitsu (March 2006):

1. Final Fantasy X (2001)
2. Final Fantasy VII (1997)
3. Dragon Quest III (1988)
4. Dragon Quest VIII (2004)
5. Machi (1998)
6. Final Fantasy IV (1991)
7. Tactics Ogre (1995)
8. Final Fantasy III (1990)
9. Dragon Quest VII (2000)
10. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)

Quote:

You'll find the terribly exciting near-launc

Motorstorm is about to be released in Japan this coming week or so.

Blu-Ray Player Shootout

Panasonic's new DMP-BD10 ($1,300) vs Samsung BD-P1000 ($999) vs PS3

"Getting back to our trio of Blu-ray Disc players, my personal favorite was the PlayStation 3. This machine's picture and sound quality were nothing short of stunning, and its HDMI 1.3 connection and built-in Dolby TrueHD decoding give it a layer of future-proofing that the other players currently lack."

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hd-dvd-bluray/1927/shootout-3-blu-ray-disc-players.html

Oh, yeah.... it plays games too.

Last edited by MikeB on 10-Dec-2006 at 11:35 AM.

Quote:

However during christmas 2007 I think people will expect better graphics than the Wii can offer.

Call of Duty 3 Wii, PS3 and XBox 360 version running side by side. The differences between the PS3 and XBox 360 version seems to be pretty small, actually I even prefer the PS3 conversion due to its brighter colors. If the differences between the other conversions are this small then IMO Playstation fans have nothing to worry about.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=15369&type=wmv&pl=game

@MikeB

I personally preferred the XBox lighting, it was a bit more realistic, but the PS3 version is pretty much the same though. The Wii version looks a bit like the first Call of Duty.

It's ok, this basically appears to be a port from the XBox, games that are specifically made for the PS3 will be much better.

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@AMiGR

Electronic Arts:

Quote:

The whole industry knows it's been a challenge; the PS3's a very complex piece of equipment. On one hand it's a challenge, on the other hand there's tremendous potential in that box. I think it's going to take developers a little while to figure out how to unlock that power. We've got games coming out now where we feel we've hit maybe 20 per cent of the potential of PlayStation 3. We know the power's there, but like any new platform it's going to take us a little bit of time to unleash it.

And I don't think that's gonna happen with cross-platform game engines.

Quote:

Was it more complex than we were expecting? Yes, probably; there were some challenges that we didn't expect. We've got tremendous confidence long-term that it's going to be a phenomenal games machine

But what else could they say? I mean with Motorstorm is about to hit Japan next week and Lair & Killzone dev teams doing the alledgedly impossible. Hopefully EA will at some point release an impressive PS3 exclusive.

@MikeB

The Xbox360 over here as the PlayStation3 won't be out until march.

edit oops! jumped one generation ahead.

Last edited by Arnie on 10-Dec-2006 at 03:47 PM.

@_Steve_

Thanks you are right it's just a subset that has the 1 year warranty. So just scrap that point. It doesn't change that Microsoft offered to repair/replace all non-haxored hardware so it's not $140 any longer as you claimed. I assume if you haxored your console and the update bricked it then paying the $140 won't even get you a new one.

Something was faulty on their code to brick non hacked machined. But, they quickly identified and repaired that code, 10/31 was the 1% chance of a brick update and 11/1 was the date the fixed code was available. And they offered to fix those bricked by the code for free. Should users complain - definitely. Seriously, I doubt any other company would give you anything more.

This is a class action suit but it'll go no where. Judge - ' So what you're saying is their update broke your console and they repaired it of free? Dismissed next case' A class action because someone was injured make prefect sense. A class action because you couldn't play GoW for a couple weeks - stupid!

You seem to be very glad you didn't do the update? There was a 99% chance that on 10/31 nothing bad would have happened and if you waited a couple days nearly a 100% chance nothing bad would have happened. Egads run the sky is falling.

***
Anyone know the Wii failure rate? It's probably not announced yet but some were saying above 5% didn't work out of the box. Also, the latest WiiConnect24 update bricked some consoles. Nintendo is replacing for free. I guess more then Microsoft sucks on their software quality.

@MikeB

Quote:

I am not so sure abou that. Final Fantasy series sold over 70 million copies worldwide, and Dragon Quest sold over 40 million copies worldwide.

Yes, however look at the sales number for each game and Dragon Quest sold more in Japan per copy than Final Fantasy. It all comes down to the total number of Final Fantasy games. It was also Dragon Quest III (1988) that caused a new law in Japan saying that Dragon Quest games cannot be released on a school day, because too many kids were running off to get/play the game. The law is still in effect today.

And yeah, Motorstorm is something to look forward to. I might get it if I had a PS3. I'd be more interested in Virtua Fighter 5, though.

@MikeB

I was pretty amused at that EA quote. If I were running a business, there's no way I'd go out and say I was releasing games that are only using 20% of the hardware.

It may be close to true though - at least as far as the cell itself goes. I'm guess they've not managed to distribute tasks properly to the SPEs and all that yet and in fact the game may more or less be running on the PPE for all we know.

It would still give a bad overall picture of the performance, though, because there's another limiting factor in the PS3 and that's the GPU. It's not going to be able to add that much more to the graphical quality/draw many more polygons (not so we go from 20% to 100%) even if the Cell is unleashed for better physics, AI and so on.

Completely unrelated, CoD 3 was actually a disappointment to many. It was far more linear and restrictive than CoD 2. No jumping over tiny walls, no room for exploration etc.

@Trezzer

Quote:

It would still give a bad overall picture of the performance, though, because there's another limiting factor in the PS3 and that's the GPU.

Resistance does not miss a single frame and also is reported to perform excellent in 40 player online gaming, one major shortfall however is that most PS3 owners still don't have a Bluetooth headset or keyboard to communicate with each other during gameplay.

I think the GPU specs you are worrying about is somewhat of a non issue if you optimise the game for the PS3 specificly. The SPEs can be used to take a lot of workload off the GPU. I believe the first demonstration of the PS3's power will happen this month with Motorstorm and the Gran Turismo Concept demo. Although the PS3 can be pushed a lot further than these will demonstrate, I think they will serve to showcase that the PS3 is indeed the most powerful gaming platform on the market today.

@ Arnie

I wonder how many people misread Christmas 2007 for being 2006 while voting.

From NPD: (http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9943/NPD-Group-Releases-Xbox-360-Sales-Data/)

Our friends from Voodoo Extreme has compiled some Xbox 360 stats from the November report released by The NPD Group. Here is what VE obtained after an extensive look to the report:

Xbox 360 Stats:

325,902 Xbox 360s were sold in the United States in November (Core:Premium ratio unknown).


556,221 Xboxs were sold in the United States in the same number of days following launch.

The best selling Xbox 360 title, Call of Duty 2, was sold 250,730 times to members of the United States public, making it the 3rd best selling console title in November.

The worst selling Xbox 360 title, Ridge Racer 6, was sold just 9,091 times to members of the United States public, making it the 187th best selling console title in November.

The best selling first-party title, Perfect Dark Zero: Limited Edition, was sold 85,593 times to members of the United States public (if sales figures for the Limited Edition were combined with sales figures for the regular edition, Perfect Dark Zero would be number three on the Xbox 360 chart).

The first-party title with the least sales was Kameo: Elements of Power, with 73,801 units sold.

Total number of units sold by the Xbox 360 top 10: 1,031,829.
Total number of units sold by the Xbox 360 top 19 (18 launch titles & Perfect Dark Zero: Limited Edition): 1,273,352.
Total number of units sold by original Xbox launch line-up: ~1,334,930.
Total number of dollars taken by the Xbox 360 top 10: 57,894,847.
Total number of dollars taken by the Xbox 360 top 19: 72,072,729.
Tie ratio of the Xbox 360 by the end of November (average number of games sold per console): 3.9.
Tie ratio of Xbox in equal number of days: 2.4.
Xbox 360 accessory tie ratio: 3.1
Wireless controller tie ratio: 98%

@DonnieA2

I believe those are 2005 stats.

The XBox 360 from the begining till the start of this month is reported to sell about 6% better in the US than the original XBox did.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-12-07T223304Z_01_NC7293448_RTRIDST_0_MEDIA-MICROSOFT-XBOX.XML&rpc=66&type=qcna

Last edited by MikeB on 10-Dec-2006 at 07:22 PM.

@MikeB

Those numbers are still interesting next to the PS3 numbers. Especially numbers like attachment rate etc.

@Trezzer

I believe the figures for the end of next year will be more interesting with regard to the PS3, then almost anyone interested in a PS3 would have had a chance to buy the console.

With regard to the XBox 360 people already had this chance and thus is selling slightly better than the original XBox did, this despite production issues during its launch.

According to Sony the initial production issues are now resolved and more units should appear on the Japanese and US markets on a regular basis. I also believe brand new games will sell better than conversions of older games.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4369&Itemid=2

Last edited by MikeB on 10-Dec-2006 at 08:23 PM.