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The Next-Gen Consoles - Sort Fact From Fiction
1up.com continues its trend of topical features by delving into Generation Next: Separating the Facts from the Fiction of the Next-Gen Consoles. From the article: "Photorealistic graphics, streaming multimedia content, complete Internet integration and revolutionary new kinds of gameplay are all promises of next generation gaming. Right now, it's all executives blowing hot air and technobabble, but in just a short few weeks, the battle for the living room starts again, as Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony take the wraps off their new babies and show the world their visions of the industry's future."
I've been looking forward to the next big thing from Morgan Stanley, and it looks like they're entering the gaming market! Article says that they've co-developed the Cell with Sony and Toshiba, sounds fascinating.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2379
Cell will either make the PS3 much more powerful then the XBox360 or an impossible mess to program for. A lot of it will come down to how well Sony's early generation dev kits are.
The Cell gets it's speed by assuming it is passed in order instructions, unlike almost any other type of CPU. It will choke on anything out of order. Sony better make a kick ass compiler, as I don't see game developers to keen on making assembly langauge level tweaks on something they are unfamilliar with.
My money is on XBox360. The Cell chip is better suited for video cards then a general purpose CPU. Having to tweak code for it will be a disaster.
Everyone seems be coming out with a fact/fiction article these days on the newest consoles. Check out this article [http://www.jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=3235] for a little more humorous view of some of the same ideas at Jive Magazine.
http://www.tomandemily.com
Guess we can look forward to nothing but basic fighting and driving games for a couple of years until programmers figure the new systems out. Rehashed Tekken and Gran Turismo with slightly better graphics anyone?
FTA: "Imagine players slapping down $.99 to buy a one-of-a-kind, fully tricked-out racing car to be the envy of their buddies," says Microsoft
What would be even more "tricked-out" would be not having to pay for it. Ladies and gents: In game customizations will now cost you a buck a pop.
I know "The Sims" would be so much more fun if I had to spend my money on their furniture, rather than Simoleans.
Digital Sailor
Fact from fiction? Not quite. Basically an article that collects the hype from all three console camps.
"the next generation PlayStation "orders of magnitude" more powerful than the next Xbox"
Sure it will. The Playstation 2 will also be able to render Toy Story real time. Nothing to see here folks.
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Historically, I've always found console launches to be pretty exciting. Saving my money up for a year in advance so I can get the consoles on launch date along with a couple of launch titles. Rallying behind your favorite console (even though I really know it's all about the games, and I generally have all the consoles anyway).
But, this round of console launches seems to be a little disconcerting to me. First and foremost, I'm worried about nintend (seems like someone needs to worry on their behalf) - who should be focusing on rebuilding their relationship with third party game makers, instead of going out of their way to make something strange and difficult to make games for. Microsoft looks like they might really do well this year, which worries me more than the thought that nintendo might utterly fail. It's not that I have anything against microsoft personally, it's just that they seem to really be pushing bringing PC style games onto consoles, as opposed to console style games. I find the vast majority of the xbox games to suck horribly (just my opinion).
Sony seems to be doing it's own sony thing, overhyping the system and such. I'm not sure how well they'll do either, there are a lot of people who were burned by the poor quality of the initial PS2s last time around, and they historically have a hard time getting supply to meet demand. They might also be pulling a nintendo and shooting themselves in the foot with the Cell architecture. Difficulty of programming was one of the biggest complaints about the PS2, and from what I know about the cell architecture sony may have exacerbated the problem.
In the end, I predict that Microsoft will win, sony will take a distant second place with a few ports and very few original games, and nintendo will be completely out in left field making some money on things that bear very little resemblance to traditional games, and which may or may not be any fun at all.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
RIP Nintendo. I really wish I understood what they have been trying to do for the last 8 or so years. Ever since they decided reneg on their agreement with Sony to make the Nintendo64 CD thing (or whatever it was supposed to be called) they have been trying to catch up. I really can't imagine a console gaming world without Nintendo, but 10 years out we might be remembering back to the times when we had Nintendo's like we do now with Atari games.
As for Sony and Microsoft, I am going to enjoy this battle and am, in a lot of ways, rooting for Microsoft to do well. Where Sony has followed their traditional arrogance (lack of support, proprietary hardware, proprietary accessories) with most of their consumer electronics (cameras, CLIE, etc.) Microsoft has really done a good job distancing the xbox from the mothership that we all complain about.
Who would have thought that it would be Microsoft trying to force game companies to support older titles (EA's sports titles to be exact) for longer than the game publisher had intended.
Honestly, I think that the reason that the next iteration of Microsoft's console will include the name xbox in the title is to continue the separation between xbox and the Microsoft name. Sony uses Sony in all of the titles as does Nintendo, where MS is only listed in small print.
Regardless of how things turn out, it will be fun to watch
http://www.tomandemily.com
Do you even know what Cell is? It's multiple processing cores on a single chip. Here is a picture together with a single chip quote from IBM itself.
I don't know why you think Nintendo is dying. That's exactly like saying apple is dying. Apparently they're "dying" while raking in moderate to large profits each quarter while their competitors struggle to break even. Nintendo isn't going anywhere. And secondly, the joint Nintendo/Sony Venture was an SNES expansion, that gave rise to the PS1.
Remember when Sony said the PS2 could do Toy Story in real time? They did. Turns out they meant the PS3 will be able to do it. So just keep in mind that whatever they say about the visual quality of the PS3, actually refers to the PS4.
Twas a joke, my friend. Just a joke. Cheer up, bud! :)
If that was a joke, then it was a very bad joke.
What about software developers? Yu Suzuki seems to be in no hurry to even confirm or deny Shenmue 3's existance, and Rare has done what since the Ghoulies?
... uh...Virtual Fighter?, but that doesn't explain Rare, now that they're just another microsoft division. Maybe they have big plans for the next xbox, but I'll believe it when I see it.
As for platform familarity, I cry BS. Shenmue 2 was the triumph of putting a lot of bitmaps on a disc, and seeing as all Rare games look basically the same, the reason why we haven't seen Banjoe Threeie is what exactly?
I know I'm over simplifying things (especially Shenmue 2 which I thought was awesome), but we're not talking about developers trying to push the graphics envelope here. And franky, that's not what I'm looking for...I just want fun games, and Shenmue and Banjo-Kazooie (not so much Twoie) were a lot of fun.
I can imagine Suzuki being tied up doing
And even more cool: The next Nintendo will run all Playstation games!