@BrianK

Not suprising returns are dropping with 2 revisions in the field now...

Quote:

Nintendo Wii: 403.6K (4 million total) Nintendo DS: 383.3K (12.7 million total) Microsoft Xbox 360: 276.7K (6.3 million) Sony PlayStation 2: 202K (39.1 million total) Sony PSP: 151.2K (8.3 million total) Sony PlayStation 3: 130.6K (1.75 million total) 1. Madden NFL 08 (Xbox 360) -- 896.6K 2. Madden NFL 08 (PS2) -- 643.6K 3. BioShock (Xbox 360) -- 490.9K 4. Madden NFL 08 (PS3) -- 336.2K 5. Wii Play/ w remote (Wii) -- 256.8K 6. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii) -- 218.1K 7. Mario Strikers Charged (Wii) -- 147.4K 8. Guitar Hero 2 w/guitar (PS2) -- 145.4K 9. Mario Party 8 (Wii) -- 138.3K 10. Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s (PS2) -- 127.1K 11. Madden NFL 08 (Xbox) 12. Madden NFL 08 (Wii) 13. Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day (DS) 14. Two Worlds (Xbox 360) 15. Pokémon Diamond (DS) 16. High School Musical: Making the Cut (DS) 17. Guitar Hero 2 w/guitar (360) 18. Madden NFL 08 (PSP) 19. Pokémon Pearl (DS) 20. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (Xbox 360)

Interesting AUGUST US NPD numbers...
Metroid Prime 3 did really well for being on the shelves for 3 days. I might not have picked up my copy until September, myself. It should have some legs next month.
disappointing to see the original Xbox's Madden outsell the Wii version. EA only advertised a 360 version. If they did a commercial showing the family-play mode, I'm sure alot more casuals would have bought it on the Wii.

Mario Strikers Charged has some legs on it too... 4 Wii titles in the top 10. I don't see any 360 titles in the top 20 that came out prior to August except GH2 but I'd have to check the date on that one... As for the PS3 - Madden and then nothing.

Microsoft can claim large launch day #'s even up to 2 weeks later, but the legs on Nintendo titles can't be denied. I think publishers are being suprised as to how long they have to keep printing discs for Wii titles...not to mention DS carts...

If rumors of Japanese allocations of Wii's moved to the US are true, we could see an even bigger September. The US is the only territory where the Wii hasn't surpassed the 360 in installed base. Japan hardware has been on a slump as of late across all platforms after an August high...

Quote:

1. Nintendo DS (77,488) 2. Nintendo Wii (29,088) 3. Sony PSP (15,564) 4. Sony PS2 (13,360) 5. Sony PS3 (13,248) 6. Microsoft Xbox 360 (1,286) 7. Nintendo GBA (550) 8. Nintendo GameCube (82)

Next month, let's see if Halo 3 drives MS hardware to the top. My prediction - no. Sure there are some people waiting until HALO 3 launches to purchase a 360, but those people are probably the same 100k that purchased Madden for the original Xbox last month. I don't think it will be enough to topple the Wii, especially if the extra stock allocation rumor is true. This may infact be intentional my Nintendo to downplay the "Halo effect". Picture this - Halo 3 launches and Wii still outsells the 360 - that would be bad for MS. No doubt the title will move 3M copies on launch though...(being the biggest casual gamer's title on the platform can do that )

As for the 360 being a true hardcore game's console... A true hard core gamer who owns a 360 will eventually pick up a Wii after a price drop in order to get their fix of a few titles that they may want latter in the Wii's lifecycle. They may also pick up a PS3 really late in it's lifecycle for what few A+ exclusives the system may eventually end up with... So no, I don't see the demand for the Wii dropping off anytime soon...

@Lou

An interesting month indeed.
***
1. Madden NFL 08 (Xbox 360) -- 896.6K
2. Madden NFL 08 (PS2) -- 643.6K
3. BioShock (Xbox 360) -- 490.9K
4. Madden NFL 08 (PS3) -- 336.2K
***
Madden is interesting.
360 : ~ 1 Madden sold per every 12 consoles.
PS3: ~ 1 Madden sold per every 13.5 consoles.
PS2: ~ 1 Madden sold per every 183 consoles.

So we're definitely starting to see some signs that the last of the last gen is showing some cracks.

Also interesting in this case if manufactures wanted the same quantity of sales on the PS3 the PS3 would have to sell at least 10% more consoles then the 360. Again this is a one case example and there will be others. But having the PS3 with half the consoles of the 360 and having a lower receive rate by games if one was in the gaming business the arguement for cross platform between these 2 makes itself.

Quote:

Halo 3 launches and Wii still outsells the 360 - that would be bad for MS

Bad in the sense that the 360 will likely be out of first place forever yes. But, it won't be bad for Microsoft, H3 will make them $$, move consoles, and will likely outsell H1.

Quote:

A true hard core gamer who owns a 360 will eventually pick up a Wii after a price drop in order to get their fix of a few titles that they may want latter in the Wii's lifecycle

Undoubtably the hardcore gamer owns many gaming options. There was recently an article about the PS3 in Europe, for example. The large majority of PS3 owners own a 360 or a Wii or Both. So yes this shows that consoles keyed into hardcore gamers doesn't mean the gamer is going to be exclusive to that console.

Personally it's sad to see the PS3 not selling more and having more games. It has nice potenital, but I want to use the potential. Hopefully Christmas of 2008 will improve things. Even the dominate High Def. DVD format war is impacted. For Blu-Ray the ratio is 1 movie for every 4 players on the market. For HD-DVD the ratio is 2 movies per every 1 player. OUCH! Had the PS3 sold more they could off-set it's poor ratio. But, since they aren't HD-DVD is able to stick around longer. This means us consumers have to deal with waiting longer for this decision to be over. Frustrating.

I know this is off-topic, but just to make good on earlier comments:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6179170.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;1

I'm buying one of the PS3 Dual Shock 3's as soon as they hit Europe... I think MotorStorm especially would benefit from the update to rumble.

Late, but better late than never.

@jtsiren

I think one of the saddest things is that Sony's biggest attraction at TGS is the last generation feature rumble. (Oh and that EA leaked the news before TGS) As Microsoft is fixing the problems with their consoles it seems Sony is fixing theirs. Sony we need games!

There's rumors and I did say rumors abound that Sony's PS3 is their last gaming machine. The latest one comes from a recent Sony press release where they revealed they were reducing R&D on processors. Personally I think they'll come out with a PS4 but if it's not until 2010-2011 period they can likely rest a couple years before trying to develop the next next gen. Or cheat just shrink the PS3 to 45nm and then put 3 PS3 CPUs on 1 die.


Back on 360 news... Halo3 got a 10/9/9/9 from Japan's Famitsu mag. 10 for game play is excellent. Overall a very good rating and a great rating considering Japan doesn't like FPS.

Last edited by BrianK on 20-Sep-2007 at 04:21 PM.

@BrianK

Maybe that IPO stock offering is so they replace each and every sixaxis with a Dual Shock 3 instead of lowering the price.

That would be the fair thing to do. I like how Kaz put it as a breakthru... The breakthru was made by the legal department, not the engineering department...

Here's an editorial from www.gamesindustry.biz:
Quote:

Distant Rumbling It would be harsh, perhaps, to suggest that this week's announcement of a replacement for the PS3's much-vaunted SIXAXIS pad represented an embarrassing volte-face for Sony. Harsh, but nevertheless true. The introduction of the Dual Shock 3 and the reversal of a year of public denouncements of rumble technology as "last generation" is a loss of face for the firm. It's also unquestionably the right decision. Dropping rumble support from its controller was never a design-led decision for Sony in the first place, after all. The firm's stances on rumble being too hard to integrate with motion sensing (which Hirai trotted out again yesterday), or simply being a last-generation feature not suited to the new SIXAXIS pad, were developed in retrospect to cover up the reality of the situation - a messy patent dispute with haptic feedback firm Immersion. There was no mention of Immersion during Hirai's TGS keynote, which is perhaps a shame; a little honesty on this front could have gone a long way to confirming his rhetoric about Sony humbly returning to basics. However, the company's settlement with Immersion is the event which opened the doors to the creation of Dual Shock 3; the breakthrough here was made by Sony's legal team, not its researchers and engineers. Of course, Sony should have sorted out this problem before the PS3 launched, rather than leaving users with crippled controllers for the first 12 months of the console's lifespan - and there's no doubt that an overhaul of the controller a year after launch isn't exactly what the firm's bosses would have wanted. However, it's hardly the first time that this has happened. The original Dual Shock controller was introduced during the lifespan of the original PlayStation, replacing a pad which had no analogue sticks and no rumble function, and quickly became the de facto controller. Microsoft, too, has faced an even more similar situation; it replaced the widely derided, oversized Xbox controller with the far more comfortable Controller S model only a few months into the lifespan of the console. In both cases, the change was hailed as a positive move - the Dual Shock launched to rave reviews, while the Controller S was seen as evidence of Microsoft's willingness to listen to its consumers, learn from its mistakes, and adapt quickly to meet the demands of the audience. More than anything else Microsoft has done in the console market, the introduction of Controller S created a reputation as a nimble, reactive company - no mean feat for a firm whose activities in other markets are renowned for being quite the opposite. We don't expect Dual Shock 3 to receive quite the same level of rapturous response. Some early adopters may be annoyed at having to buy new controllers, of course, but the overall response is likely to lie somewhere between "oh, good" and "about time" on the sliding scale of consumer enthusiasm. There will also, of course, be some inevitable sniping from the sidelines about the firm's U-turn on the issue. In the medium to long term, however, the move to Dual Shock 3 is an unqualified positive for Sony. The lack of rumble is not only a stick which its competitors and detractors could use to beat the PS3; it was also the kind of feature which the average consumer understands, and which most consumers want. Haptic feedback may presently be a blunt instrument in terms of user interface, but it has become a standard feature of videogames, and its absence in the PS3 was a definite negative. As to the remainder of Sony's keynote at TGS, it's hard to be particularly enthused about what Hirai had to show - largely because there was very little there which hadn't already taken a public bow at E3 back in July. Hopes that the keynote would unveil key new software for PS3 did not come to fruition - and while the future line-up for the console is stronger than its critics claim, it needs to be stronger still if it's to stand up to the increasingly impressive catalogue on the Xbox 360. Less surprising is the lack of a price cut announcement. As many commentators have noted, late September is arguably a bit too close to the holiday season to cut the price; traditionally, cuts have arrived by early September, in time for retailers to arrange their autumn promotional campaigns. It now seems certain that PS3 will not see a genuine price cut before next Spring, although further "value adjustments" similar to the summer's bundle introductions are likely next month. It's fair to say that the TGS keynote, despite the Dual Shock 3 announcement, was something of a missed opportunity for Sony - especially coming as it did only days before the release of Halo 3, one of Microsoft's biggest hopes for the autumn and holiday seasons. Although the new controller is a positive, and the PS3's line-up is gradually starting to look compelling (although not, perhaps, at the console's high price point), Hirai ultimately fell into the same trap with this keynote as the now-departed Ken Kutaragi did last year. Despite his claim of going back to basics, "basics" in this case should be videogames - instead, the TGS keynote was about future technological possibilities, filled with speculation over virtual worlds, remote play and linked supercomputing power. Such topics play well at academic conferences or in the pages of Wired magazine - but for a global audience of gamers, the keynote once again failed to establish the PS3 as a videogames system of choice. Reports from the show floor at the Makuhari Messe may well help to redress the balance - but for all his fine words about listening to consumers, it seems that Kaz Hirai still hasn't learned how to talk to them.

Where are the games Sony?
HOME got delayed.
No new software announced.

Sony did by the studio responsible for Motorstorm...now patch it to include rumble...

@Lou

Quote:

Maybe that IPO stock offering is so they replace each and every sixaxis with a Dual Shock 3 instead of lowering the price.

Well Microsoft did take a $ hit to fix their hardware issues. I'd agree Sony should do the same. It appears they fixed the bug that caused rumble to not work on their controllers afterall.

@MikeB

Well the last thing I read a few days ago was that Sony were looking to sell off their CPU division to Toshiba (following claims of Patent infringements in their Cell CPU). So I wouldn't hold my breath on a PS4 yet, especially as a lack of software for the PS3 is not doing it any good at all.

_________________
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@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: @Lou Quote: Maybe that IPO stock offering is so they replace each and every sixaxis with a Dual Shock 3 instead of lowering the price. Well Microsoft did take a $ hit to fix their hardware issues. I'd agree Sony should do the same. It appears they fixed the bug that caused rumble to not work on their controllers afterall.

Yeah, the "legal" bug...

In Japan....
Proving that it's software that drives hardware sales:
Quote:

PlayStation Portable: 95,487 Nintendo DS Lite: 79,974 Nintendo Wii: 26,181 PlayStation 2: 13,128 PlayStation 3: 13,101 Xbox 360: 1243 Game Boy Advance SP: 836 Nintendo GameCube: 97 Nintendo DS: 15

thanks to Final Fantasy 7:Crisis Core being released for the PSP to the tune of 500K copies sold. Pokemon's combines sales did outsell it but is listed twice as #'s 2 and 3...

@_Steve_
Well the PS3 will have a 12 year lifecyle anyway
Ofcourse in 4 years, MS will release it's twin dual overhead hex cored Xbox 720 with Ultra-mega HD-DVD drive with DirectX11 capable gpu that can do 4320p and comes with 32GB of RAM and a 500TB HD...only to be outsold by the Wiii (3 i's) with it's standard 1.45Ghz cpu that only supports 720p...sometimes...

So Halo 3 has been released. The launch was not without its problems regarding XBox 360 defects, but RRoD incidents have been fewer than previously feared. This may be due to the fact that Halo 3 isn't really a native HD game, but rather a game rendering at 640p which may take some workload off the GPU with regard to heat production.

Still:

Defective: Halo 3 Disc Read Errors Rampant

"A storm is brewing in both the Xbox and Bungie forums, where over a hundred posters have now verified that their copies of Halo 3 are causing disc read errors. lockups, and even the dreaded RRoD on their Xbox 360 consoles. From what I can glean from skimming through the 22 pages of replies to the original poster's problem, most of the people affected purchased the standard edition, though a few are reporting having the problem on both the standard and the LE version of the game. Some believe the discs are corrupting the data on the hard disc itself, as some have had their game discs replaced twice or more now with similar results, and removing the hard disc seems to keep the error from occurring with some posters. Some can load the game fine and play it for short bursts before the problem occurs, while others are finding the issue limited to certain game modes. Check out the forum threads for more info on the problems had, and hopefully some official response will be given about the issue soon."

http://kotaku.com/gaming/defective/halo-3-disc-read-errors-rampant-304600.php

Some latest XBox 360 problem reports from NeoGAF:



1 ) "My friend's 360 is still missing after 11 weeks now. He's asking for advice, and he's extremely ####ed off. Mine took three days, but that was obviously before the warranty announcement.

They told him to not contact a lawyer about it, even though he hadn't mentioned anything about that."

2) "Anyone have more info on this? Is MS confirming there's an issue with Halo? Mine threw up the red before I could even finish the first level. I thought maybe I'd be one of the lucky ones whos 360 doesn't suck. So close."

3) "....and there goes my third 'premium' 360, nine months later. After a five hour Bioshock session, next boot up = RROD. No amount of unplugging or fiddling about would get it to boot."

4) "My 2nd 360 kicked the bucket. I bought Halo 3 this morning during a break at work, stayed at the lab 'til 'bout 6:30, came home to finally put the game in to play it and it crapped out on me when the Bungie logo came up. Luckily I bought into an in-store replacement program last year when my first one died (ironically on the very same day Gears of War was released....I seem to have bad luck with these major releases) and was able to swap it out for a brand new unit (date of manufacture was 8/30/07, so I feel pretty good about this trade). Pain in the ass and all (especially on Halo 3 day)"

5) "Mine 3 red lighted again, 1 day into halo 3. This refurb lasted about 3 months."

6) "Mine RRODed today. Kinda ####ed now, it lasted less than four months.

Jesus, how do they get away with this ####?"

7) "My 360 died last night. Called customer service and im supposed to have the box to send it in within a week. Hopefully I will. Luckily im not a big Halo fan so im not upset about missing that. But I wanted to play some more Oblivion. :("

8) "My 360 died the second i put in Bioshock. I have yet to play it. 24 days later and I have still not received my new console. Plus the guys at MS say they only got it in on the 17th, which is absolute BS. It doesn't take 17 days to ship 3 states. "

9) "Got my replacement unit back today, manufacture date 9-11-07. No HDMI though. I can confirm that MS "support" is ridiculous in every way. The service site listed my console as having shipped back. Phone support assured me that wasn't the case. The service site gave me a tracking number and I checked it. It showed my console going to Olympia, WA instead of New York City. I called MS last night and the guy (I called three times to get a U.S. rep) swore my console hadn't shipped yet... then it arrived today "

10) "Alright, so my 360 is still out (though they said it was shipped back to me on tuesday, big help for a halo fan). So on monday I bought a 2nd 360 to play Halo with the plan of selling one of the consoles to my brother when I see him next. Which one should I keep (a.k.a. which one is more reliable and less likely to get the red rings.)

The new 360 with HDMI or the 360 sent back from the repair center??

Thanks to anyone who can help out"

11) "Bleh, my new 360 Premium w/ HDMI that I bought 3 weeks ago just died today. Just started Halo 3 campaign. I can't finish the fight

Seriously, though, this sucks ass."

12) "6 business days and i haven't gotten my box to send in my 360 yet...this has the makings of a nightmare..."

Just a small selection of the past few days to give a overview of the problems people are experiencing.

@MikeB

Quote:

This may be due to the fact that Halo 3 isn't really a native HD game, but rather a game rendering at 640p

I believe anything other then 480p is HD so 640p is HD and a nice # if you want to double it you get 1080p. We all knew Halo3 wouldn't be a graphics powerhouse but compared to Halo2 it's much more detailed and smoother.

If anyone is wondering what difference there is here are some screenshots

Quote:

A storm is brewing in both the Xbox and Bungie forums, where over a hundred posters have now verified that their copies of Halo 3 are causing disc read errors.

Wow over 100? In the first 24 hours Microsoft reported making over $170M . So that's what almost 3M copies on just the first day? Let's see 500 out of 3M is less then a .02% error. No one likes a bad disc. So really you're complaining about better then 99.9% perfect disc? OMFG!

I think there's a needle lost in a haystack just down the road from your house.

@BrianK

uhm, 640x2 = 1280, 540x2 = 1080

@BrianK

Quote:

I believe anything other then 480p is HD

The PS2 can easily output 576p for PAL PS2 games, so the PS2 should be considered to be a HD console?

Quote:

Wow over 100? In the first 24 hours Microsoft reported making over $170M . So that's what almost 3M copies on just the first day? Let's see 500 out of 3M is less then a .02% error. No one likes a bad disc. So really you're complaining about better then 99.9% perfect disc? OMFG!

It seems there are thousands of reports:

"Halo 3’s graphics were not up to par for what they should have been, the games packaging showed signs of being rushed as thousands of gamers reported scratched disks right out of the box, and the fact that hundreds of reports keep flying in that the game locks up."

Interesting read:
http://www.gamerevolver.com/articlenav-52-page-1.html

Of course like many things, the reports read online on the internet are just the tip of the iceberg! (and the tip of the iceberg, is much larger considering there exists more than just 1 website)

Last edited by MikeB on 29-Sep-2007 at 11:08 AM.
Last edited by MikeB on 29-Sep-2007 at 11:07 AM.

@BrianK

Quote:

I believe anything other then 480p is HD

IMO it's better to stick to international agreements to simplify technical discussions.

"Three HDTV standards are currently defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-R BT.709). They include 1080i (1,080 actively interlaced lines), 1080p (1,080 progressively scanned lines), and 720p (720 progressively scanned lines). "

I think Microsoft's main issue is the quality control. These issues just keep on cropping up - the RRoD obviously won't have a chance in hell of getting remedied truly until smaller chips hit the market and if Falcon isn't 65nm GPU initially, that will be still maybe a year away. Clearly the heat sink alone won't cure the major issue here, that much seems obvious. Halo scratched discs, wheel issues etc. are more icing to that rotten cake, even if a small minority, still there seems to be a major quality control issue at Microsoft.

Now, this doesn't mean people can't enjoy Xbox 360. Many do. I do and will, it has some great games like everyone keeps saying. But unless the quality issues get sorted out, this will eventually shorten the systems lifespan far more than any processing power requirements will - PS2 got to top and stayed there even though it clearly was inferior to Xbox 1, but then PS2's quality issues weren't as severe as Xbox 360's seem to be.

As for the processing power comparisons, I think they are interesting and will continue to follow them. If in the end PS3 provides more power and better games, great! Power to them. With Dual Shock 3 I have less grief with them anyways. Now, wheare are them games...

Now, Halo 3. That I will buy anyways, great reviews. I hope my Xbox 360 holds up. :)

Last edited by jtsiren on 29-Sep-2007 at 01:29 PM.
Last edited by jtsiren on 29-Sep-2007 at 01:28 PM.

@MikeB

As for the PS2 outputting 576p it upscales to that none of the games are made in that resolution so no it's still SD.

Quote:

""Halo 3’s graphics were not up to par for what they should have been, the games packaging showed signs of being rushed as thousands of gamers reported scratched disks right out of the box, and the fact that hundreds of reports keep flying in that the game locks up."

Graphics are what they are. They're not as good as Gears of War but they're much improved compared to previous Halo games go back and view the page I include on a previous post to see the images comparing all 3. If someone doesn't like the graphics then they don't. Surely graphics isn't the only thing that makes a game it's about gameplay. Halo3 has better graphics then most every PS2 game but I bet you won't dump the PS2 for Halo3 due to graphics, for example.

The packing is an issue. Microsoft had made a package with a new design on a DVD holder. Kinda dumb use what works. But, in shipping discs have become dislodged and scratched as a result. Microsoft quickly admitted to the problem and is replacing all discs with the issue.

Lou is right on here even with the issues this is a popular platform. Sure not as many sold as the PS2 the most popular console ever. But, he 360 did sell the most videogames ever in a single day. Reported 1 day sales were $170M more then Spiderman3's opening weekend. The most impressive launch of a videogame evar.

Estimates are over 4M games sold the first week, we'll see actual numbers later, but still if we have 40K people with problems 99% of people are happy. And while frustrating to have issues Microsoft is replacing the game. Clearly they've learned when there are problems to quickly identify the issue and quickly resolve the problem for the customer. Many stores have 30 day warranties on games so another option is to exchange it for a new copy and you wouldn't even have to wait for Microsoft to exchange the disc.

@BrianK

Yeah, what happens with Xbox 360 on the wider market is very much open for success - the quality issues (which tend to hit hardcore players more due to their nature) and especially any performance issues are not as important there. Sony is at this time hard-pressed to compete there given Xbox 360's strong performance (to which Halo 3 will add tremendeously) and Wii's stellar performance. Sony seems to now aim for a future, years down the road, victory which may or may not be important depending on how you look at it - down the road there will be new Wii's and new Xbox's probably sooner than a PS4 and thus a whole new market again... Who knows who wins and how.

However, I do wish to acknowledge (and I'm sticking to my guns saying I won't drag myself into debating this here anymore) that for a hardcore player or a gaming enthusiast - latter being the perspective I look things from - both the quality and the performance are issues. The former is a real issue which needs resolving, otherwise playing Xbox 360 just becomes a chore in the long run, and the latter an issue which will dictate how the interest in the system will play out in the gaming crows - remember how Xbox 1 became the hardcore players choice because of its performance. It didn't win the mass battle, but it won the hearts of many. If PS3 eventually gets there with the performance and games, and Xbox 360 is further marred by quality issues, I don't see how gamers wouldn't flock to PS3. They won't TODAY because Xbox 360 is where the games are, but I mean, a year from now or so if the red ring still rules the day and developers can't seem to push the system (perhaps also out of fear of overheating it)...

So, Microsoft, get the quality right and let your system continue to compete for the hearts and minds of gamers, not just the mass-market... I think there is still room to show which system can continue to deliver the best games.

@BrianK

Quote:

As for the PS2 outputting 576p it upscales to that none of the games are made in that resolution so no it's still SD.

Both the PS2 (with software) and PS3 are able to output 576p for PAL games on HDTVs just fine. But PAL PS2 games aren´t rendering in HDTV resolutions with just 576 lines.

Last edited by MikeB on 30-Sep-2007 at 08:02 PM.

@BrianK

Quote:

As for the PS2 outputting 576p it upscales to that none of the games are made in that resolution so no it's still SD.

Of course it's SD. 480p and 576p are SD. 720p, 1080i and 1080p are the defined
HD resolutions. Anything else are just custom resolutions.
I don't know if PS2 scales up to 576 lines or outputs fully calculated modes.
But I find it strange if it didn't because then it wouldn't be better than PS1, resolution
wise.

Last edited by Samwel on 01-Oct-2007 at 02:05 AM.

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@MikeB

Halo3 in 640p not being HDTV on a technical level would be true. US ranking is 720p or 1080i/p but nothing else. 640p isn't in the SDTV classification for the US either.

There are other games on these platforms which are not necessarily living up to the advertising. The PS3 has similar issues. PS3 pushed 1080p as the ultimate yet was there 1 1080p game at launch? The vast majority were 720p. The Darkness is 540p upscaled. Ninja Gaiden Sigma is 960x720 then software scaled to 720p or 1080p. Rub-a-dub is neither 720p nor 1080p. Call of Duty 3 is 600p for either platform.

Again how much does this matter? In some cases Ninja Gaiden it does for people complain the 1080p is blurier then the 720p game. The consoles scale and various people's sets scale many sets, some plamsa screens for example, don't do either 720p or 1080p but have their own resolutions.

At this point Halo3 not being 720p native is a point of interest. It is much better graphic wise then the first 2 parts, has better AI, is playable, is entertaining, has high rankings at nearly every review site and is the title that's sold the most videogames in a single day ever.

I wonder in a month will there be more PS3s sold or more copies of Halo3, it'll be a close race.

Last edited by BrianK on 01-Oct-2007 at 04:27 AM.

@BrianK

Quote:

Again how much does this matter?

Quite simple, Bungie is owned by Microsoft and has a huge development budget and probably more development time than other currently available XBox 360 or PS3 game.

Yet the game is rendering at a resolution lower than advertised 720p (@ 30 FPS) and provides no AA (which is often claimed to be free, on the XBox 360!).

This is no half-assed low budget 3rd party project, neither is the game being ported from another original target platform. Bungie should have been able to push the XBox 360 to the max, yet it IMO Bungie didn't. I wonder what the real reasons for this is, maybe higher res textures would exceed the storage limitation of DVD, maybe considering the popularity of the game there were fears of mass RRoD incidents or maybe something else. But the topic is interesting from a technical standpoint.

Last edited by MikeB on 01-Oct-2007 at 11:12 AM.