Slashdot Mirror

I've heard that before in this discussion. I still can't wrap my head around it. Do you guys really think 300-400 is in the "impulse buy" category? It's not an impulse buy, it's an "that's a good value, these other consoles are too damn expensive for a damn gaming system" buy.

Anything around $300 fits in the "toy" budget range. If you're a 20s-30s gamer with a decent job, this is an impulse buy. This is what the generation that grew up with Nintendo and Sega fall under. "These other consoles" are not "too much" by any stretch. If you're spending $1000-$2000 on an HDTV, and you buy a good number of games, $500 for a console isn't that much.

You say that as if is something negative. Newsflash: Party games are what the target market is looking for. I've owned a Wii since launch day. Do you want to know what the people coming over now and then for a game are requesting to play? Wii Sports (Tennis or Bowling, mostly) and Rayman. Putting down those party games means misunderstanding why the Wii is a success.

It is something negative. These sorts of things are faddish. A year from now, the only people who are going to care about Wii Sports are those who have never played it, because they're not gamers and they would otherwise not care. Despite what Nintendo says, the bread and butter of their business is still the gamer who is going to buy their games... not buy a Wii, play Wii sports a few times a year, and otherwise let it gather dust. These are not the people who play Zelda and Mario and Metroid.

I'm not so sure it's a foolish assumption of Square, considering the following of the series, but it's a risk nonetheless... Even so, I'm glad they're taking that risk. It enables them to build an ever bigger world and storylines, which is the most compelling element of the FF series to me. Personally, I which more game develop companies would take risks like that (in general offcourse, I don't want 10 years of Rub-a-dub storylines ;).

Does anyone else remember CRASH magazine? Whatever happened to those guys?

A bit of pointless time wasting with Google has found a few of them - Oli Frey (and maybe some others), are now running Thalamus Publishing, which produces illustrated history books, Chris Anderson is the curator of the Technology Entertainment Design) Conference, Julian Rignall was reviewing for IGN as recently as last year, although Wikipedia claims he currently works for the Bank of America (no idea if he still has a mullet), and Gary Penn is now Creative Director at Denki.

See IGN's Take on the matter.

Because I am a nice guy:
http://media.wii.ign.com/media/748/748547/vids_1.h tml
http://media.wii.ign.com/media/819/819756/vids_1.h tml

Because I am a nice guy:
http://media.wii.ign.com/media/748/748547/vids_1.h tml
http://media.wii.ign.com/media/819/819756/vids_1.h tml

This link is more up to date http://gear.ign.com/articles/782/782359p1.html

They won't be sold until Q4 2007 though. From the link

April 20, 2007 - In breaking news today, it would appear that mega-retailer WalMart has contracted a Chinese manufacturer to produce millions of low-cost HD-DVD players. Though somewhat obfuscated by translation issues and the breaking nature of the news, the current internet consensus suggests that Taiwan based manufacturer Fuh Yuan, in cooperation with TDK, will produce the blue laser drives for 2-million HD-DVD players. Broadcom will reportedly supply the system-on-a-chip decoder, and China Great Wall will handle final assembly. The deal represents around US $100,000,000, and it is reported that a new manufacturing plant has already been opened to fulfill the order.

Speculation suggests the players will arrive at retail in late 2007 and will be priced between $199-299. At such cost, WalMart's HD-DVD drives will be far below the current low of $399 for Toshiba's HD-A20 player, and will look cheap compared to the lowest priced Blu-ray hardware on the market today ($599).

If the current details of the plan prove to be true, WalMart's support of HD-DVD will have a significant impact on the next-gen DVD format war. The American retailer operates on a high-volume, low-margin business plan of market saturation, which is exactly the approach required to drive one format or the other to preeminence.

First off, the OP's link didn't work for me. This one did, though.

Considering that the Xbox360 and (windows) PC ports both likely use DirectX, I imagine the port back and forth was cake. Not only that but the PS3 is a much more difficult system to get working so yeah, if they barge headlong into ports without actually working to make the graphics look good then sure, it'll suck. I imagine most of those 6 months was spent porting away from DirectX, y'know, Microsoft's lock-in for graphics/input/sound APIs. Microsoft makes it easy to write for the platform, but a bitch to port away from.

Yes, DirectX surely makes it easier to port between PC and 360 than it does PC and PS3. That said, many other companies have figured it out (look at Epic's Unreal Engine, for example). Monolith wants to be an engine company just like Id and Epic, so surely they should be able to figure it out as well. Besides, porting between architectures has nothing to do with texture quality, which if you read the review was a major gripe (textures look "muddy" on the PS3 port). Why would that happen, especially given the extra real-estate available on a Blu-Ray disk that would allow textures to be stored uncompressed?

As for difficulty of working with the PS3, that's also somewhat true of the 360. Multi-threading is hard, and optimizing for a non-look-ahead architecture is harder. Of course, 360 developers only have to deal with 6 hardware threads with full functionality, rather than 1 with full functionality and 7 threads that are little more than glorified vector units, so I could see how developing for the PS3 would be harder. Well, that and Microsoft provides awesome developer support and Sony doesn't.

A lack of online for PS3 version smacks of laziness on behalf of the publishers, since they can just slop the online component off on microsoft for the xbox360 verison. They'd actually have to provide a service for their customers, but don't want to.

But wait! The PC version has online multiplayer already that doesn't rely on Xbox Live or its peer-to-peer architecture. In fact, I would suspect it's harder to switch from PC-style client/server network play to Live's peer-to-peer method than it would be to port the PC code over to the PS3. Lazy developers? Sure. Lazy because it's "hard"? Maybe so, but I suspect the "hardness" has nothing to do with the fact that the developer would have to provide an infrastructure that's already available on PC. Then again, maybe they spent so much time just getting the game to work on the PS3 that there was nothing left to sort out multiplayer as well.

Games make a console. This screams shitty ports and half-ass releases rather than "omg the ps3 sucks." The PS3 isn't going anywhere, and I certainly hope no one wishes Microsoft total victory. Wouldn't be the first time they forced their way into a market, only to effectively destroy it (What's that? Six years between browser releases what? Still incompatible?)

Sony, welcome to the market Microsoft entered 6 years ago. The Xbox game selection was rife with shitty PS2 ports, and was clearly a second-class citizen in the market. Looks like this time around the PS3 is going to fill that niche. Yes, most companies don't "win" twice in a row in the console market (so far, only Sony's done that with the PS1 and PS2), so Sony may very well come back out on top with the PS4. Then again, with all of their eggs in the Blu-Ray basket (see this very story about Wal-Mart potentially backing HD-DVD, thus guaranteeing a loss for Blu-Ray; alternatively, take a look at Sony's past history with proprietary formats and their inability to win), their continued demolishing of customer trust (yeah, I'm sure you went out and got a second job like Kutaragi suggested in order to buy a PS3), their DRM issues (*cough*rootkit*cou

The justification for the high price of the PS3 is that it is also a Blu-Ray player. If Blu-Ray loses the format war, where does that leave the PS3? Don't even try to say that the PS3 is a superior game console to the Xbox 360. F.E.A.R. was just released on the PS3 and it has inferior graphics to the Xbox360 or PC. The PS3 version was released 6 months after the Xbox 360 version. Nearly every game released on both platforms has inferior graphics and no online for the PS3 version.

Simply put, the PS3 doesn't hold a candle to the visuals found in the Xbox 360 version -- especially considering the handful of bugs that have dead soldiers getting stuck in walls and twitching on the floor. The detailed environments and clear draw distances aren't found on PS3. If you had never seen the other versions of F.E.A.R., you still wouldn't be impressed with the PS3's graphics, but compared to the PC and 360, this version is graphically dead in the water.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/782/782476p2.html/

We are looking at a $199 HD-DVD player in the near future. At $150 cost per unit, I think Walmart is going to charge $199 a piece. Walmart works in volume. If they do this, you're going to see $249 players from other retailers. I guess all of the people who are saying that they are waiting for a sub $200 HD player will be buying one soon. Is Sony preventing the release of cheaper Blu-Ray players or is it just taking too long to bring down manufacturing prices?

HDTVs are about to be widely adopted. On Walmart's website, they are selling a 37 inch 720p/1080i TV for $698. I'm not saying it's the greatest quality television, but it's not outside the price range of the middle class. So you can buy a HD TV and player for under a thousand dollars.

If Sony had joined the HD-DVD coalition, they would be in a much better position. There would have been no format war and the PS3 would have a HD-DVD drive which would be the certain high definition format. Sony would still collect some royalities, just less than a Blu-Ray victory. Sometimes the safe option is the best option.

it looks like we are going back to Playstation (as in 1) level of graphics,

I stopped reading your comment right there

Have you seen the Resident Evil footage (Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Resident Evil 4)? I can't wait to get my hands on a wii and these games.

Have you seen the Resident Evil footage (Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Resident Evil 4)? I can't wait to get my hands on a wii and these games.

Sony doesn't announce what is coming in the Thursday update ahead of time, but speculation is that some or all of Calling All Cars, Super Rub-a-Dub, and the Home beta are coming out this week.

...and for $20 all the NWN packs on one DVD offer a hell of a lot of game, not mentioning all of the good stuff you can download and add to it...

Blue Dragon ships on three DVDs, making it bigger than any Xbox 360 title to date. According to Sakaguchi, the game required compression technology to fit onto the three disks. In uncompressed form, the game's data takes up over 30 Gigs of space!

Admittedly this is a bit of self-promotion, but the first module of the Dark Waters campaign should be posted on the Vault tomorrow. It has lots of custom content, voice acting, scripting system, and hopefully a fun little storyline. For people impatient for the expansion, this might tide them over.

They seem to like to ignore the fact that it costs money to run the console. Anyone that has bought their own car understands that it costs money not only for the Gas to make it run (electricity for the console), but there's maintenance as well. The car needs new tires, brakes, and other parts that are in use. The console is not designed to run at 100% CPU 24/7 and will wear out quicker.

I would guess you could wear out a PS3 in a year by running it 24/7 on this, so that's $600/yr cost right there. I seriously doubt they plan to pay that much.

Even assuming the console would last forever, the electricity to run constantly it is apparently about $150/yr. http://ps3.ign.com/articles/776/776347p1.html This charts says the national average to run Folding@PS3 is $12.23/month, which is about $150/yr.

I don't think that they would even pay the $150 in straight cost you incur, let alone for the wear and tear on the console.

This is a great opportunity to contribute to a cause, but it's an awful idea as a way to make money in your home.

Umm, the PS3 already does H.264. It's only xvid that it doesn't do, to my knowledge.

It does need a better interface for media libraries though. At least the PSP allows you to create playlists on your memory cards (by creating boxes/folders when you load your music from your PC). The PS3 is pretty annoying in terms of music playback. Video playback isn't too bad, though. No playlist control there either, to my knowledge.

I love my PSP. but for one reason, and one reason alone: Makai Senki Disgaea Portable.

Of course, i have to play it in japanese. There's not enough support of NISA to release it in english yet, apparently.

And of course, i had to hack my PSP to do that.

but the port is great.. It looks excellent, has more features than the PS2 version of the game, suspends and resumes perfectly when you flick the power button.. it just works really well. As a games machine, the PSP is perfect for RPGs and Tactics games. It just so happens that there aren't many good ones for it. A company less obsessed with 'next gen' features might have seen this and done something about it.

I stick to the basic normals:
http://slashdot.org/
http://www.ign.com/
http://howtodealwithmyherpesaddiction.com/
http://slashdotusersanonymous.org/
http://yourstupidifyoubelievethesearerealwebsites. net/

You know, just the basics...

Verified problem with PS3 Bluray playback which is NOT the same as game playback, and at NO time did I conflate the two. I don't know what your problem is, why the facts are so annoying to you, but no matter how much you pose and posture, you can't change the facts. Read the links - READ them, don't skim them. You are wrong, you've been wrong since your first post, and that's not going to change until you change your position.

What are you talking about? When have you ever seen a 720p native display refuse 1080i input?

About 2 minutes ago, in my Rec room. Infocus 5000, Firmware 753-0363-10, Brandware 753-0363-02, Bootcode 002-1082-00. That's what I'm talking about. You feed this thing 1080i and you get 1/2 vertical screen of bright green squish.

What does this mean? Well, that your complaint about being unable to watch a Blu-Ray movie on the PS3 due to lack of display support is completely bogus.

No, what it actually means is that you don't know what you're talking about, that there are 720-only capable displays out there, and that you didn't do any research before you shot off your ignorant mouth. For instance, one quick Google search turned up the problem at IGN, avforums, arstechnica, joystiq and many more, both user forums and more technical forums. So lets just drop the "it's not a problem" nonsense right now. It is a problem.

The XBOX launched almost 2 years after the PS2 (Nov 15 2001 vs Mar 15 2000). It had an off-the-shelf card that rendered more polygons, had onboard AA, etc. It did a lot of these things right out of the box, which the PS2 developers took a bit to figure out.

Now compare, say Black on the PS2 to Halo 1... and a few years later, Halo 2 isn't showing that much improvement. In fact, Black on the PS2 and XBOX are almost indistinguishable. And compare games like God of War 2 to early titles like Evergrace. Criminy.

What does all of this show? First, most obviously, that the PS2 improved a whole lot over its lifetime---enough that it's still comparable to the XBOX. Second, that the XBOX hasn't improved a great deal over its (somewhat shorter) lifetime.

Neither of these conclude anything about the 360 vs the PS3; what does, however, is to look at how the philosophies paid off. Sony said "here's some powerful custom hardware, it may be hard to program at first, but it will pay off later". It did. Microsoft said "here's some hardware you know how to program, what you see is pretty much what you get". The PS2 still has a lot of big name titles coming out throughout its seventh year, while the XBOX has already been EOL'd.

Similarly with the 360 and the PS3---though the PS3 has been released little less than a year later, and the launch titles already matches 2nd-gen 360 games---and some of them in 1080p vs 720p. The 360 is all about "easy, Windows-like platform". The PS3 is all about "here's a system custom-tailored for game development", like the PS2 was. Now, note, a lot of the PS3's "power" is focused around the Cell: things like managing thousands of on-screen entities, doing physics, etc. Some of this helps with graphics: high bandwidth to process and push textures, things move and act smoother, etc. Raw graphic card vs graphics card, I'm not going there, because I don't know---someone else can comment.

But let's compare the Cell. A couple easy things to think about: looking at the F@H stats, the OSX/PPC clients are outputting 7 TFLOPS. The PS3 clients are outputting 564 TFLOPS with 2.6 as many CPUs. If things were "about as powerful", they should be outputting more like... 18-19 TFLOPS. Not two orders of magnitude more.

So, OK, the OSX/PPC boxes are probably slower than the 360 cores: I don't think you could get a 3.2GHz G5 PPC Mac, and even if you could, not everyone on that list is running them. So multiply the TFLOPS by 2 or 3 to bring those 1GHz boxes up to 3, if you want ... but that's not the 80.5 times greater you'd need to match the PS3 numbers. But perhaps Microsoft will be kind enough to release their own F@H client so we can get a real comparison, not just a rough estimate.

In terms of games, we'll have to see: can the 360 do things like Little Big Planet's fully-physically-simulated worlds? Even just in terms of graphics, does the 360 have anything like LBP to match the sheer solidity and real-world look LBP objects have? After 16 months, does the 360 even have a demo that will match a PS3 demo shown after only 4 months? (Video previews shouldn't really count, but I'll take 'em.)

The XBOX launched almost 2 years after the PS2 (Nov 15 2001 vs Mar 15 2000). It had an off-the-shelf card that rendered more polygons, had onboard AA, etc. It did a lot of these things right out of the box, which the PS2 developers took a bit to figure out.

Now compare, say Black on the PS2 to Halo 1... and a few years later, Halo 2 isn't showing that much improvement. In fact, Black on the PS2 and XBOX are almost indistinguishable. And compare games like God of War 2 to early titles like Evergrace. Criminy.

What does all of this show? First, most obviously, that the PS2 improved a whole lot over its lifetime---enough that it's still comparable to the XBOX. Second, that the XBOX hasn't improved a great deal over its (somewhat shorter) lifetime.

Neither of these conclude anything about the 360 vs the PS3; what does, however, is to look at how the philosophies paid off. Sony said "here's some powerful custom hardware, it may be hard to program at first, but it will pay off later". It did. Microsoft said "here's some hardware you know how to program, what you see is pretty much what you get". The PS2 still has a lot of big name titles coming out throughout its seventh year, while the XBOX has already been EOL'd.

Similarly with the 360 and the PS3---though the PS3 has been released little less than a year later, and the launch titles already matches 2nd-gen 360 games---and some of them in 1080p vs 720p. The 360 is all about "easy, Windows-like platform". The PS3 is all about "here's a system custom-tailored for game development", like the PS2 was. Now, note, a lot of the PS3's "power" is focused around the Cell: things like managing thousands of on-screen entities, doing physics, etc. Some of this helps with graphics: high bandwidth to process and push textures, things move and act smoother, etc. Raw graphic card vs graphics card, I'm not going there, because I don't know---someone else can comment.

But let's compare the Cell. A couple easy things to think about: looking at the F@H stats, the OSX/PPC clients are outputting 7 TFLOPS. The PS3 clients are outputting 564 TFLOPS with 2.6 as many CPUs. If things were "about as powerful", they should be outputting more like... 18-19 TFLOPS. Not two orders of magnitude more.

So, OK, the OSX/PPC boxes are probably slower than the 360 cores: I don't think you could get a 3.2GHz G5 PPC Mac, and even if you could, not everyone on that list is running them. So multiply the TFLOPS by 2 or 3 to bring those 1GHz boxes up to 3, if you want ... but that's not the 80.5 times greater you'd need to match the PS3 numbers. But perhaps Microsoft will be kind enough to release their own F@H client so we can get a real comparison, not just a rough estimate.

In terms of games, we'll have to see: can the 360 do things like Little Big Planet's fully-physically-simulated worlds? Even just in terms of graphics, does the 360 have anything like LBP to match the sheer solidity and real-world look LBP objects have? After 16 months, does the 360 even have a demo that will match a PS3 demo shown after only 4 months? (Video previews shouldn't really count, but I'll take 'em.)

The XBOX launched almost 2 years after the PS2 (Nov 15 2001 vs Mar 15 2000). It had an off-the-shelf card that rendered more polygons, had onboard AA, etc. It did a lot of these things right out of the box, which the PS2 developers took a bit to figure out.

Now compare, say Black on the PS2 to Halo 1... and a few years later, Halo 2 isn't showing that much improvement. In fact, Black on the PS2 and XBOX are almost indistinguishable. And compare games like God of War 2 to early titles like Evergrace. Criminy.

What does all of this show? First, most obviously, that the PS2 improved a whole lot over its lifetime---enough that it's still comparable to the XBOX. Second, that the XBOX hasn't improved a great deal over its (somewhat shorter) lifetime.

Neither of these conclude anything about the 360 vs the PS3; what does, however, is to look at how the philosophies paid off. Sony said "here's some powerful custom hardware, it may be hard to program at first, but it will pay off later". It did. Microsoft said "here's some hardware you know how to program, what you see is pretty much what you get". The PS2 still has a lot of big name titles coming out throughout its seventh year, while the XBOX has already been EOL'd.

Similarly with the 360 and the PS3---though the PS3 has been released little less than a year later, and the launch titles already matches 2nd-gen 360 games---and some of them in 1080p vs 720p. The 360 is all about "easy, Windows-like platform". The PS3 is all about "here's a system custom-tailored for game development", like the PS2 was. Now, note, a lot of the PS3's "power" is focused around the Cell: things like managing thousands of on-screen entities, doing physics, etc. Some of this helps with graphics: high bandwidth to process and push textures, things move and act smoother, etc. Raw graphic card vs graphics card, I'm not going there, because I don't know---someone else can comment.

But let's compare the Cell. A couple easy things to think about: looking at the F@H stats, the OSX/PPC clients are outputting 7 TFLOPS. The PS3 clients are outputting 564 TFLOPS with 2.6 as many CPUs. If things were "about as powerful", they should be outputting more like... 18-19 TFLOPS. Not two orders of magnitude more.

So, OK, the OSX/PPC boxes are probably slower than the 360 cores: I don't think you could get a 3.2GHz G5 PPC Mac, and even if you could, not everyone on that list is running them. So multiply the TFLOPS by 2 or 3 to bring those 1GHz boxes up to 3, if you want ... but that's not the 80.5 times greater you'd need to match the PS3 numbers. But perhaps Microsoft will be kind enough to release their own F@H client so we can get a real comparison, not just a rough estimate.

In terms of games, we'll have to see: can the 360 do things like Little Big Planet's fully-physically-simulated worlds? Even just in terms of graphics, does the 360 have anything like LBP to match the sheer solidity and real-world look LBP objects have? After 16 months, does the 360 even have a demo that will match a PS3 demo shown after only 4 months? (Video previews shouldn't really count, but I'll take 'em.)

The XBOX launched almost 2 years after the PS2 (Nov 15 2001 vs Mar 15 2000). It had an off-the-shelf card that rendered more polygons, had onboard AA, etc. It did a lot of these things right out of the box, which the PS2 developers took a bit to figure out.

Now compare, say Black on the PS2 to Halo 1... and a few years later, Halo 2 isn't showing that much improvement. In fact, Black on the PS2 and XBOX are almost indistinguishable. And compare games like God of War 2 to early titles like Evergrace. Criminy.

What does all of this show? First, most obviously, that the PS2 improved a whole lot over its lifetime---enough that it's still comparable to the XBOX. Second, that the XBOX hasn't improved a great deal over its (somewhat shorter) lifetime.

Neither of these conclude anything about the 360 vs the PS3; what does, however, is to look at how the philosophies paid off. Sony said "here's some powerful custom hardware, it may be hard to program at first, but it will pay off later". It did. Microsoft said "here's some hardware you know how to program, what you see is pretty much what you get". The PS2 still has a lot of big name titles coming out throughout its seventh year, while the XBOX has already been EOL'd.

Similarly with the 360 and the PS3---though the PS3 has been released little less than a year later, and the launch titles already matches 2nd-gen 360 games---and some of them in 1080p vs 720p. The 360 is all about "easy, Windows-like platform". The PS3 is all about "here's a system custom-tailored for game development", like the PS2 was. Now, note, a lot of the PS3's "power" is focused around the Cell: things like managing thousands of on-screen entities, doing physics, etc. Some of this helps with graphics: high bandwidth to process and push textures, things move and act smoother, etc. Raw graphic card vs graphics card, I'm not going there, because I don't know---someone else can comment.

But let's compare the Cell. A couple easy things to think about: looking at the F@H stats, the OSX/PPC clients are outputting 7 TFLOPS. The PS3 clients are outputting 564 TFLOPS with 2.6 as many CPUs. If things were "about as powerful", they should be outputting more like... 18-19 TFLOPS. Not two orders of magnitude more.

So, OK, the OSX/PPC boxes are probably slower than the 360 cores: I don't think you could get a 3.2GHz G5 PPC Mac, and even if you could, not everyone on that list is running them. So multiply the TFLOPS by 2 or 3 to bring those 1GHz boxes up to 3, if you want ... but that's not the 80.5 times greater you'd need to match the PS3 numbers. But perhaps Microsoft will be kind enough to release their own F@H client so we can get a real comparison, not just a rough estimate.

In terms of games, we'll have to see: can the 360 do things like Little Big Planet's fully-physically-simulated worlds? Even just in terms of graphics, does the 360 have anything like LBP to match the sheer solidity and real-world look LBP objects have? After 16 months, does the 360 even have a demo that will match a PS3 demo shown after only 4 months? (Video previews shouldn't really count, but I'll take 'em.)

The XBOX launched almost 2 years after the PS2 (Nov 15 2001 vs Mar 15 2000). It had an off-the-shelf card that rendered more polygons, had onboard AA, etc. It did a lot of these things right out of the box, which the PS2 developers took a bit to figure out.

Now compare, say Black on the PS2 to Halo 1... and a few years later, Halo 2 isn't showing that much improvement. In fact, Black on the PS2 and XBOX are almost indistinguishable. And compare games like God of War 2 to early titles like Evergrace. Criminy.

What does all of this show? First, most obviously, that the PS2 improved a whole lot over its lifetime---enough that it's still comparable to the XBOX. Second, that the XBOX hasn't improved a great deal over its (somewhat shorter) lifetime.

Neither of these conclude anything about the 360 vs the PS3; what does, however, is to look at how the philosophies paid off. Sony said "here's some powerful custom hardware, it may be hard to program at first, but it will pay off later". It did. Microsoft said "here's some hardware you know how to program, what you see is pretty much what you get". The PS2 still has a lot of big name titles coming out throughout its seventh year, while the XBOX has already been EOL'd.

Similarly with the 360 and the PS3---though the PS3 has been released little less than a year later, and the launch titles already matches 2nd-gen 360 games---and some of them in 1080p vs 720p. The 360 is all about "easy, Windows-like platform". The PS3 is all about "here's a system custom-tailored for game development", like the PS2 was. Now, note, a lot of the PS3's "power" is focused around the Cell: things like managing thousands of on-screen entities, doing physics, etc. Some of this helps with graphics: high bandwidth to process and push textures, things move and act smoother, etc. Raw graphic card vs graphics card, I'm not going there, because I don't know---someone else can comment.

But let's compare the Cell. A couple easy things to think about: looking at the F@H stats, the OSX/PPC clients are outputting 7 TFLOPS. The PS3 clients are outputting 564 TFLOPS with 2.6 as many CPUs. If things were "about as powerful", they should be outputting more like... 18-19 TFLOPS. Not two orders of magnitude more.

So, OK, the OSX/PPC boxes are probably slower than the 360 cores: I don't think you could get a 3.2GHz G5 PPC Mac, and even if you could, not everyone on that list is running them. So multiply the TFLOPS by 2 or 3 to bring those 1GHz boxes up to 3, if you want ... but that's not the 80.5 times greater you'd need to match the PS3 numbers. But perhaps Microsoft will be kind enough to release their own F@H client so we can get a real comparison, not just a rough estimate.

In terms of games, we'll have to see: can the 360 do things like Little Big Planet's fully-physically-simulated worlds? Even just in terms of graphics, does the 360 have anything like LBP to match the sheer solidity and real-world look LBP objects have? After 16 months, does the 360 even have a demo that will match a PS3 demo shown after only 4 months? (Video previews shouldn't really count, but I'll take 'em.)

The XBOX launched almost 2 years after the PS2 (Nov 15 2001 vs Mar 15 2000). It had an off-the-shelf card that rendered more polygons, had onboard AA, etc. It did a lot of these things right out of the box, which the PS2 developers took a bit to figure out.

Now compare, say Black on the PS2 to Halo 1... and a few years later, Halo 2 isn't showing that much improvement. In fact, Black on the PS2 and XBOX are almost indistinguishable. And compare games like God of War 2 to early titles like Evergrace. Criminy.

What does all of this show? First, most obviously, that the PS2 improved a whole lot over its lifetime---enough that it's still comparable to the XBOX. Second, that the XBOX hasn't improved a great deal over its (somewhat shorter) lifetime.

Neither of these conclude anything about the 360 vs the PS3; what does, however, is to look at how the philosophies paid off. Sony said "here's some powerful custom hardware, it may be hard to program at first, but it will pay off later". It did. Microsoft said "here's some hardware you know how to program, what you see is pretty much what you get". The PS2 still has a lot of big name titles coming out throughout its seventh year, while the XBOX has already been EOL'd.

Similarly with the 360 and the PS3---though the PS3 has been released little less than a year later, and the launch titles already matches 2nd-gen 360 games---and some of them in 1080p vs 720p. The 360 is all about "easy, Windows-like platform". The PS3 is all about "here's a system custom-tailored for game development", like the PS2 was. Now, note, a lot of the PS3's "power" is focused around the Cell: things like managing thousands of on-screen entities, doing physics, etc. Some of this helps with graphics: high bandwidth to process and push textures, things move and act smoother, etc. Raw graphic card vs graphics card, I'm not going there, because I don't know---someone else can comment.

But let's compare the Cell. A couple easy things to think about: looking at the F@H stats, the OSX/PPC clients are outputting 7 TFLOPS. The PS3 clients are outputting 564 TFLOPS with 2.6 as many CPUs. If things were "about as powerful", they should be outputting more like... 18-19 TFLOPS. Not two orders of magnitude more.

So, OK, the OSX/PPC boxes are probably slower than the 360 cores: I don't think you could get a 3.2GHz G5 PPC Mac, and even if you could, not everyone on that list is running them. So multiply the TFLOPS by 2 or 3 to bring those 1GHz boxes up to 3, if you want ... but that's not the 80.5 times greater you'd need to match the PS3 numbers. But perhaps Microsoft will be kind enough to release their own F@H client so we can get a real comparison, not just a rough estimate.

In terms of games, we'll have to see: can the 360 do things like Little Big Planet's fully-physically-simulated worlds? Even just in terms of graphics, does the 360 have anything like LBP to match the sheer solidity and real-world look LBP objects have? After 16 months, does the 360 even have a demo that will match a PS3 demo shown after only 4 months? (Video previews shouldn't really count, but I'll take 'em.)

you're probably right, and I do agree that the software emulation will gradually get better over time
However it's the comments from Sony that they're going to be focusing on new content rather than backwards compatibility that's a little worrying
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/02/23/european_p s3_has_less_functionality_than_us_japan/

also given that we're paying more for less

after a bit of googling, found a couple of links on backwards compatibility so far
not necessarily EE related, but just backwards compatibility in general
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/02/23/european_p s3_has_less_functionality_than_us_japan/
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/745/745439p1.html

also a youtube on this, although I believe this problem has been fixed now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCD9TwLrVs

Sadly, they included a SoundBlaster X-Fi. For being "Vista Ready", this is way overkill as Vista (DX10) hardware accelerated audio. Way to turn a $100+ piece of equipment into a $1.42 integrated audio solution.

Sony felt that they owned the video game market. They should have seen the first signs when the Nintendo DS dominated the Sony PSP. Just as Nintendo became arrogant and thought they would own the console market forever, Sony will feel the harsh penalty of hubris themselves.

This is silly. Someone who is utterly confident in their market will release a mediocre product without putting any real effort into it, simply because they don't feel the need, and it's expensive. Take, for instance, Microsoft and Windows. Why include all those new features in Vista, or optimize it, when you know people are going to buy it and put out the money for upgrades? So it crashes, so it breaks, whatever.

Companies do not pour millions into R&D and push the latest-greatest into the product and take a big financial risk if they're that confident. It's very risky and not necessarily profitable, whereas the other is.

Sony decision to include the BluRay drive was based on the belief that PS2 owners would flock to the stores to buy anything with Playstation on the name. No matter the cost. And yet PS3s sit on store shelves, gathering dust. Greed is the irrational pursuit of money. Businesses are about the pursuit of money, but in order to be successful they have to balance their desire with common sense. Sony became greedy and lost their common sense.

No; Sony wasn't going to be considered "technically inferior" for the second generation in a row. See previous: they see Microsoft as a competitor, and the XBOX was acclaimed for having better specs. You compete, or you lose.

Sony has a distinct disadvantage, and a unique position, in the market: they've never had a strong video game brand name. "PlayStation" is about as generic as it gets. There's no mascot or overriding brand: i.e., no Mario or Sonic or Master Chief. You don't think of "PlayStation," you think of Final Fantasy or Gran Turismo or Jak or Ratchet or all those games you play on it.

Anyone who talks how many great Sony exclusives will be available, is clearly deluded. Sony exclusive after exclusive is going to the Xbox 360 as well (Assassin's Creed, Virtual Fighter 5, Armored Core 4). Big games released on both consoles (Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, F.E.A.R., GRAW 2) are being released months ahead of time on the Xbox 360 before being released on the PS3. There are credible rumors of Metal Gear Solid 4 being released on the Xbox 360 and Final Fantasy is getting kind of tired. God of War 3 and Grand Turismo 5 will be in development for years. Motorstorm is a racing game in one environment and Resistance:Fall of Man has to hold off Gears of War, Lost Planet and Halo 3 on its own. What will the PS3 have available for Christmas 2007 that isn't being released on the Xbox 360?

Convenient for you to mention only the games that have some inkling of being ported, and also convenient to dismiss franchises that are massively popular on a global scale like Final Fantasy. And citing "credible rumor"? Please. Also:

• Devil May Cry 4
• Fatal Inertia
• Ninja Gaiden Sigma
• Hot Shots Golf 5
• Warhawk
• Uncharted: Drake's Territory [Naughty Dog]
• Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction
• Killzone PS3

These are all scheduled for 2007 release. These are all exclusive titles that are set to be A and AAA titles. There are lots of lesser titles in the mix, and that's not counting cross-platform titles (Oblivion, FEAR, Enchanted Arms, Armored Core 4, The Darkness, Assassins Creed, Half-Life 2, Unreal Tournament 3, Burnout 5, GTA 4, Mercenaries 2... the list goes on). For its first year, that's a pretty broad selection of games. What exclusives does the 360 have again? Halo?

This also isn't counting other titles we've seen demos for: Little Big Planet, White Knight Story, Afrika, and

It is annoying though that the unarmored models in most CRPG's always has some kind of underwear. I always wanted to play one of my favorite D&D characters (under some custom rules), namely a barbarian character that wore woad. And nothing but.


Maybe you are looking for this?

Yes, early adopters will have to go out and buy another $50/$60 controller inorder to get rumble in their games ...

Actually that's not guaranteed yet. As IGN points out, Splitfish has developed technology that is both an addon and could be added to the existing design internally. So it's up in the air as Sony hasn't said word about whether they'll go with Immersion or Splitfish. And it's possible that even if Sony does go with Immersion for internal workings, Splitfish might figure out a way to get their rumble pack to be compatible with the Immersion technology. Long story short, it's way to early to call it at this point.

Fallout3
http://pc.ign.com/objects/568/568806.html

Mario Kart Arcade GP already scans just your face and slaps it on a character model, "putting YOU in the GAME!".

"If [Super Mario Galaxy is] not a launch title it will definitely be there within the first six months" -- Miyamoto (emphasis mine)

Well, they've got one month to make a surprise release, or that's one example. I believe they also promised multiple Wii colours at launch. Not big lies, but yes, looks like they do have a track record.

Home trailer:
http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_home_g dc07_h264.wmv

Little Big Planet trailer:

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_little bigplanet_gdc07_h264.wmv

Heavenly Sword:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14502 0&page=8
http://www.playsyde.com/news_4067_en.html

Tekken 5DR:
19.99 1080p Arcade perfect port available to download from the PSN store
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmB2cV-Lz-w

Motorstorm:
12 player dedicated server no lag offroad racing with insane physics and crashes
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1103341

Warhawk:
32 player dedicated server air and ground combat game that will be available for download from PSN store
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14457 6
http://retromovies.ign.com/games/video/article/693 /693580/ignweekly_episode38_flvlowwide.flv

God of War 2:
Nothing needs to be said about this sequel...
http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/811/811719/imgs_1.h tml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwaUIShOM54

Lair:
1080p dragon game with insanely large levels and armies
http://www.gfdata.de/archiv01-2007-gamefront/2689. html

Home trailer:
http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_home_g dc07_h264.wmv

Little Big Planet trailer:

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_little bigplanet_gdc07_h264.wmv

Heavenly Sword:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14502 0&page=8
http://www.playsyde.com/news_4067_en.html

Tekken 5DR:
19.99 1080p Arcade perfect port available to download from the PSN store
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmB2cV-Lz-w

Motorstorm:
12 player dedicated server no lag offroad racing with insane physics and crashes
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1103341

Warhawk:
32 player dedicated server air and ground combat game that will be available for download from PSN store
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14457 6
http://retromovies.ign.com/games/video/article/693 /693580/ignweekly_episode38_flvlowwide.flv

God of War 2:
Nothing needs to be said about this sequel...
http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/811/811719/imgs_1.h tml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwaUIShOM54

Lair:
1080p dragon game with insanely large levels and armies
http://www.gfdata.de/archiv01-2007-gamefront/2689. html

I use review quite simply: I'm looking for reviews of games I know and like - and choose people/sites who have rated games I like highly. And then check what else they have rated highly. That way I have found PC's "Rise of Nation", "Heroes of Annihilated Empires" and "City Life World Edition" - IMHO great games I enjoy and play, but most of high profile review sites have given them crappy/misplaced ratings.

E.g. http://wii.ign.com/ fits me perfectly. But on other side http://ds.ign.com/ - is U-turn in the respect: they gave lots of near-perferct marks to IMHO shit games (e.g. Mario, Partners in time) and underrated lots of games I have liked (e.g. Lost Magic). Reviews on ds.ign.com marked as "UK" are pretty O.K. and mostly fit me.

I use review quite simply: I'm looking for reviews of games I know and like - and choose people/sites who have rated games I like highly. And then check what else they have rated highly. That way I have found PC's "Rise of Nation", "Heroes of Annihilated Empires" and "City Life World Edition" - IMHO great games I enjoy and play, but most of high profile review sites have given them crappy/misplaced ratings.

E.g. http://wii.ign.com/ fits me perfectly. But on other side http://ds.ign.com/ - is U-turn in the respect: they gave lots of near-perferct marks to IMHO shit games (e.g. Mario, Partners in time) and underrated lots of games I have liked (e.g. Lost Magic). Reviews on ds.ign.com marked as "UK" are pretty O.K. and mostly fit me.

Sony Home - This is the one to watch for.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14459 4

Heavenly Sword:

http://i14.tinypic.com/42i4ygj.png
http://i12.tinypic.com/40k658l.png
http://www.playsyde.com/news_4067_en.html

Warhawk - Downloadable Playstation Network Game
32 players online play with dedicated servers
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14457 6
http://retromovies.ign.com/games/video/article/693 /693580/ignweekly_episode38_flvlowwide.flv

Tekken 5DR - Downloadable 1080p Playstation Network Game 20 bucks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmB2cV-Lz-w

God of War PS2
http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/811/811719/imgs_1.h tml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwaUIShOM54

Motorstorm
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1103341

And Virtua Fighter 5, Flow, it's going to be quite a week for Sony.

Sony Home - This is the one to watch for.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14459 4

Heavenly Sword:

http://i14.tinypic.com/42i4ygj.png
http://i12.tinypic.com/40k658l.png
http://www.playsyde.com/news_4067_en.html

Warhawk - Downloadable Playstation Network Game
32 players online play with dedicated servers
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14457 6
http://retromovies.ign.com/games/video/article/693 /693580/ignweekly_episode38_flvlowwide.flv

Tekken 5DR - Downloadable 1080p Playstation Network Game 20 bucks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmB2cV-Lz-w

God of War PS2
http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/811/811719/imgs_1.h tml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwaUIShOM54

Motorstorm
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1103341

And Virtua Fighter 5, Flow, it's going to be quite a week for Sony.

GMs need checks and balances. I've heard multiple anecdotes of GM corruption. I've heard an anecdote of someone killing people at a defective jump-gate. (Usually, people in rage at a jump-gate just jump out to escape.) This is clearly an exploit, but the GM did nothing to an exploiter.

I know of instances where GMs will mess around with Player Owned Stations (POS) -- resetting POS shields or taking large numbers of POS offline. Resetting POS shields after an attack obliterates the efforts of dozens of players over several hours. This is clearly skewed in favor of the defender. Taking large numbers of POS offline is very significant, because it directly impacts which alliance has sovereignty over the system.

http://vnboards.ign.com/eve_general_board/b22281/1 01603137/p1/

Are GM actions logged? If not, then why not? GM actions should be logged, and the logs subject to oversight. There have to be some sort of checks and balances, or there will be GM corruption!

According to this article http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/767/767783p1.htm l Daniel Dae Kim ("Jin Kwon" on Lost and also had minor parts in both Enterprise and Voyager) is in early talks to play Sulu.

The thing that people forget is that HL2's art direction was amazing. I can't think of another title in recent memory that had a higher level of visual cohesiveness on a reasonable polybudget. For example, darkness consistently equals safety throughout the game, whereas any point you're exposed to sunlight is a location shrouded in danger. This is consistent both internally and externally. No-one, to my knowledge, has followed this color styling, yet it is an effective technique at making the player feel like an unwelcome outcast.

You can see how minimalist this tree really is. They only gave it just enough branches to cover the illusion, but not so many that it holds up to actual inspection. Another shot of said tree, from a more common angle. By not wasting any polys, they really can afford to put more on-screen. Heck, look at leaves. Artificially close, they are a big smear. But from the distance you normally see them, they can stick thousands of these things on screen, and they look beautiful.

Love the look of brick? Notice how in this shot they've burned the bump maps and damage maps and everything into the same texture? The increases the repetition in texture, but if you vary your geometry sufficiently the player will never notice. All they'll notice is a lot more is going on on-screen than they're used to. This technique looks terrible for big-open walls, but Half Life studiosly avoids big open walls within proximity of the player.

They even used a distinct pallete of blacks, muted browns, and light blues. This was far before anyone else was using anything but super-saturated primary colors.

Ignoring any technical accomplishments, this is an achievement of strong visual composition and consistent, solid art direction.

Sure, because there is no way the Wii would come with Extensive Parental Controls...Because, like everyone knows, Nintendo absolutely leads the field in games that have nothing but blood, guts and violence.

As a non-childless Slashdotter, speculating wildly about my obviously meaningless to you life experience as a parent, I find it perfectly easy to play the stuff my daughter plays, and watch the things my daughter watches, and to manage the parental controls accordingly, thereby making sure she won't encounter porn until she wants to encounter porn at least not where I can control it...And don't tell me kids are smarter than me at this particular activity; if there is a way to find porn, I'll have found it long before she will--finding porn is like a male geek superpower.

And for the record: "Porno" is so hilariously 1970's it really gives you a good idea of the level of technology these jokers are comfortable with.

Sure, because there is no way the Wii would come with Extensive Parental Controls...Because, like everyone knows, Nintendo absolutely leads the field in games that have nothing but blood, guts and violence.

As a non-childless Slashdotter, speculating wildly about my obviously meaningless to you life experience as a parent, I find it perfectly easy to play the stuff my daughter plays, and watch the things my daughter watches, and to manage the parental controls accordingly, thereby making sure she won't encounter porn until she wants to encounter porn at least not where I can control it...And don't tell me kids are smarter than me at this particular activity; if there is a way to find porn, I'll have found it long before she will--finding porn is like a male geek superpower.

And for the record: "Porno" is so hilariously 1970's it really gives you a good idea of the level of technology these jokers are comfortable with.

Sure, because there is no way the Wii would come with Extensive Parental Controls...Because, like everyone knows, Nintendo absolutely leads the field in games that have nothing but blood, guts and violence.

As a non-childless Slashdotter, speculating wildly about my obviously meaningless to you life experience as a parent, I find it perfectly easy to play the stuff my daughter plays, and watch the things my daughter watches, and to manage the parental controls accordingly, thereby making sure she won't encounter porn until she wants to encounter porn at least not where I can control it...And don't tell me kids are smarter than me at this particular activity; if there is a way to find porn, I'll have found it long before she will--finding porn is like a male geek superpower.

And for the record: "Porno" is so hilariously 1970's it really gives you a good idea of the level of technology these jokers are comfortable with.

For only 15 dollars a month, you too can play the hottest game around. World of Wordcraft!

Please remember to feed your search mutt regularly or his loyalty will drop and he will start giving you less useful results.