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More On PS3 and Xbox 2

Posted by michael on from the controllers-now-twice-the-size dept.

News for nerds writes "The BBC has news about the next-generation game consoles, with comments from various third parties. According to Rory Armes, studio general manager of EA in Europe, they have already received the development kits from Microsoft, but not yet from Sony and Nintendo. He assumes Sony's PlayStation 3 will have a little more under the hood and be more cost-efficient than Microsoft's Xbox 2. Gerhard Florin, head of EA in Europe, remarks 'PS3 will provide graphics indistinguishable from movies.' Spider-Man 2 or Toy Story 2, that's the problem."

14 of 541 comments (clear)

  1. iGame by fembots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Would it be too much to speculate that Apple can easily come out with a iGame console similarly sized like a Mac Mini?

    The article mentioned that "Microsoft is obviously a software company first and foremost, while Sony has more experience in hardware", so what then, can a software/hardware company like Apple do?

    --
    Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
    1. Re:iGame by thre5her · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From ca. 1994: Sony can do absolutely nothing. They don't have a platform to build a system around with an existing game base (like Nintendo did) and they don't have a network of developers that will create games for a brand new platform (like Nintendo has.) So speculating about an Sony gaming comsole is a complete waste of time. Next question.

    2. Re:iGame by falcon5768 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The market of 1994 is nothing like it is today. Microsoft would be fighting an uphill battle against 3 companies, and what could Apple provide that one of the other big 3 (Sony, Nintendo or Sega) dont already. All of us can go at this all day. If you want to learn about why your statment is moronic pick up "The Ultimate History of Video Games" by Steven Kent... You will fine that your statement has been repeated time and again and proven false more often than true.

      --

      "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

  2. i remember... by fresh27 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    when Nvidia said their GeForce FX series could render 6 Jurassic Park quality dinosaurs in real time. Long story short, this is bullshit and it'll be a while before we get such great quality.

    --
    http://ipod.fresh27.net/
    1. Re:i remember... by pbranes · · Score: 5, Interesting
      We have heard all of this before. PS3 marketing is doing what marketing does best - lying. Only believe it when you have the hardware in hand. We have never been given any evidence that the PS, Xbox, or gamecube marketing departments ever tell anything close to the truth.

      Case in point. Read this time article from before PS2 came out:

      http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/2000/0320/j apan.sony.html

      Don't believe it till you are holding it in your hands.

    2. Re:i remember... by c0rN_g0aT · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually Nintendo released that the GC could do 6 to 12 million polygons per second when it was actually capable of 20+. They gave the real world specs for the GC.
      Sony and M$ are the liars.

      http://www.segatech.com/gamecube/overview/

  3. Quick Summary: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "We have no idea what the two will look like, but that doesn't keep us from making Wild-ass guesses and then providing 'analysis' on them!"

  4. Movie animation by truesaer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This sounds like hype to me...how can you render on the fly as well as movies which use huge render-farms to come up with a static video? If he just meant cutscenes....well guess what, thats just the work of any DVD player.

  5. But still nothing on Nintendo... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...it seems Nintendo is all but ignored by the MSM, unless it's an article predicting doom and gloom for the country. I think Nintendo's system is definitely the one I'm most interested in seeing.

    And anybody else upset that Microsoft wants to rush the next next generation? I still don't think this generation has been tapped out yet in terms of graphics and gameplay potential (maybe I'm just a bit bitter cuz I bought an Xbox last week :P)

  6. PS3 will provide graphics indistinguishable from.. by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...movies.

    Yes. I've talked to people at EA. They really have no clue what it takes to get a movie made. When it takes 100 CPU hours to render a typical frame (not unusual) and hours of work by human compositors to achieve subtle 2D effects for which no algorithms as yet exist (such as touching up the lighting because what is aesthetically pleasing isn't geometrically correct) I wonder how they're going to do this stuff at 60fps even if the hardware renders 1000 times faster than is possible on the current crop of PCs.

    On the other hand, if by movies they mean the likes of Episode II then Half Life 2 is already better.

    --
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  7. Re:Physics? by MaineCoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By "more realistic physics" it means collisions, physical chain reactions, complex shapes, more correct aerodynamic reactions, water simulation.

    Think Half Life 2, but with objects being more realistic in reaction (all those crates acted like they were hollow and made of balsa wood... which, if you break them open, you discover they are!).

    Consider a complex problem of an urban combat situation ala Black Hawk Down, but lets even make it more complex: a helicopter taking a hit to the tail, going into a destabilized spin, slamming at an angle against a building and sliding along, tearing things up as it goes.

    These days, the results would be: the helicopter takes the hit, which blows it up, and the dead husk falls to the ground, maybe with some forward velocity retained. The building would likely be unharmed.

    Ragdoll these days tend to look like dolls made of rubber. GOOD calculations are very CPU expensive, and multiple iterations are as well, so as few iterations of very fast low resolution calculations are used in physics these days to leave CPU time for other things, such as AI logic.

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  8. Re:Watch Nintendo, not Apple by Golias · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Pippin, like the Performa and the Newton, was a product of the Dark Times, between when Jobs had control of the company stolen from him, and when he stole it back.

    Let us not speak of the Pippin any further.

    If a critical mass of Mac mini systems end up in TV rooms across America, a few game developpers will probably gravitate towards exploiting that market, and Apple may find themselves selling a popular game console entirely by accident.

    --

    Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

  9. Re:Blurring the lines between cut scenes and gamin by Antonymous+Flower · · Score: 5, Funny

    The illusion of total immersion is the first step in building the Matrix. Thank you for your feedback.

    -Agent Smith

  10. Its simple by Mike+Hawk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nintendo is not an American company. It is not traded on the American exchanges like Sony and Microsoft are. Press about Nintendo is not as useful to the people who actually get "gaming" news from the MSM, except to give perspective compared to Sony and Microsoft, and yes in the American market it is relatively doom and gloom for Nintendo. This is all logical and matter-of-course.

    And for a little perspective on rushing things... The GBA and Xbox both came out in 2001. The NDS is already out. Nintendo is the one complaining about the pace of the console cycle. This does not make sense. I'm just saying.