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PS3 vs. Xbox 360
The Guardian Gamesblog has a point by point breakdown of the Xbox 360 and PS3 spec sheets, comparing and contrasting the two consoles based on what we know about them so far. In the end, they come to the rational conclusion that for gamers what will end up deciding the battle is the gameplay. From the article: "We've pretty well reached the point of complexity with dual analogue sticks, analogue triggers and four face buttons, so while you can expect to see more content in terms of things happening, not much originality was on display. Gameplay advances will come from peripherals and Sony really showed that off with their kooky EyeToy games. Nothing wrong with controlling two bondage-clad Japanese spy chicks via videoconfering in my mind :)"
Nothing wrong with controlling two bondage-clad Japanese spy chicks via videoconfering in my mind
There's so much wrong with that I honestly don't know where to start.
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Sony really only needs to add one accessory to the Playstation line-up to guarantee a win.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It's funny that when Microsoft and Sony say that innovation will come from peripherals, people suddenly start to listen. But if Nintendo suggests the idea, everyone starts calling their downfall.
1) They won't be publicly available for a while yet 2) They don't use all available power from the instant the system is put out. Differences in speeds will really only become apparent when the higher end games start coming out towards the End of Life of the system, since they've been working on it for the life of the system. That's why the X-Box suddenly leapt ahead fairly recently. The PSII hit its stride before the X-box did. That's when the spec sheets will matter. And anybody who really cares will have both. 3) Sometimes, power isn't everything, if you can't use it. It becomes exponentially harder to squeeze more power the closer you come to the limits of the chip/computer/whatever. That's why new consoles generally come out before they have been completely drained and make it easier to make better games.
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
"Gameplay advances will come from peripherals and Sony really showed that off with their kooky EyeToy games."
We know this because NES ROB and Zapper were so darn successful at shaping gameplay for the next 20 years after their introduction.
Yes, that's sarcasim. Perhaps gameplay advances will come from a new theme once in a while. I don't wanna be a space marine any more.
I just caught this on a forum in gamespot, so take it as you like:
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Mark Rein Reveals That Most PS3 Demos Are Not Realtime!
2005-05-17 16:10:06: Written by SD6
Mark Rein of Epic Games revealed to VE3D that only a select few of the games and demos shown during Sony's press conference were realtime.
In addition to the Sony demos being shown by Phil Harrison, the Epic and EA presentations were the only third party portions actually running on the PS3 in real-time. But most of those movies, which I probably watched 3 or 4 during rehearsals for the event, look very achievable and some were probably rendered on the actual box but in non-real-time. When a system is year away, heck even with a system is 6 months away, it is reasonable to expect the power of the dev kits would still only be a fraction of the power of the final system.
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Anyone else saw that coming a mile away?
Anyway, yes ps3 presentation was a lot more spectacular than xbox but if you check the actual specs you will realize they are pretty similar they both have free internet access, wifi capabilties, and although sony tried to hide this similar physic and graphic capabilities (Actually unreal 3 runs on xbox 360 too so the demo shown by sony most probably runs on xbox360 too).
Actually if you check the new Sega game trailer, well thats actual footage from the ps3 and as you can see is basically identical to the 360 footage shown.
And no, contrary to popular belief, "not realtime" or "prerrendered" does not mean "the machine can still do that, and therefore is powerful enough to do it so we shouldnt judge it down" it actually means any machine even your grandpa 486 can pull a video like that if you give it enough time to render it.(and the needed ram and disk space) if its not realtime its a fake and can not be used to judge the machine, period.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
"Isn't it a little premature to be doing comparisons on these?!?!"
Is it even worth comparing them based on graphical prowess? The PS2 is significantly inferior to the XBOX when it comes to graphics, but its game library is far richer. It is for that reason alone I have a PS2 and not an XBOX.
"Derp de derp."
The reason for this was actually already answered on Slashdot.
They have a number of glaring mistakes including:
Err... no Sony has nothing to do with SD memory cards and shun them where ever possible in favour of their own "Memory Sticks".They also mention that the large number of cores will make it difficult for developers to start coding on the PS3 - I doubt that this will be too much of an issue as all of the new games are going to be multithreaded anyway. It's a case of 8 cores on the PS3 vs 3 cores on the XBOX 360 which in turn run 6 threads. The main issue for coding on the PS3 is going to be the development environment which is most likely to be an extension of the PS2 environment which is in turn an extension of the archaic PS1 environment.
But the one area I really want to know about is reliability ie will the PS3 actually offer any? The fact that one of the 8 SPEs is disabled for reliability/stability issues is triggering alarm bells for me.
And finally they completely discredit Nintendo as not focusing on high-tech: So WiFi, downloadable content and one of the smallest home consoles ever doesn't count as high-tech now? Yes the Big-N has so far released no specs but to discredit it like this is a tad unfair.In case you don't read this old article.
You know, one from when people were so excited about all the USB ports and the Firewire port and the PCMCIA port on the PS2, how it could render Toy Story in real-time and movie studios were looking at using them for render farms. Where it would be easy to edit home movies on the PS2. And how it was HD compatible so you could play all your games in HD.
Or how Sony stated that the PS2 would be a viable entertainment platform for 10 years.
Does anyone actually expect the PS3 to ship with the 255 different ports on the thing that the E3 demo one had? I sure as hell don't. I expect the PS3 that is sold to be a substantially different machine. The Xbox 360, however, will be little changed.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Graphics aren't that insignificant.
I bought both, and ended up ditching my PS2. A significant part of that decision, in the light of relatively similar lineup of games that I actually wanted was the graphics. That and having a modded xbox running xbox media centre playing divxs from my home server..
It took me forever to buy an Xbox. I wanted one, but every time I went to the store, I'd stare and the box and just feel compelled not to buy it. No problem buying games though.
Nintendo, hell yeah I'd buy it. Sony, yeah, what the hell. M$...eh, not so much.
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I'd like to be the first to welcome you to what most people refer to as a "Global Economy".
It seems like a safe assumption that you bought an Xbox. I'm sure the manufacturers in Mexico, Hungary, and China are thankful you spent your American currency on their product. And just imagine where all those parts came from as well...
So does this mean that the PS3 and XBox 360 will be as powerful as Sony and Microsoft promised the PS2 and XBox would be?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piconet
Moderators: Don't agree? pray tell why.
I'm surprised that the article didn't really compare (in any detail) the online strategies of these two companies. The Xbox's more fully integrated Live service is a real draw to those who do any significant amount of their gaming online. The fact that Sony (as far as I can tell) mentioned just about nothing regarding any integrated online services for the PS3) is pretty amazing... Also, their HD comparison didn't note that games for the 360 are mandated to run @ 720P. The PS3 having 1080P (very rare on any HD TV most of us could afford) might be of strategic importance a few years down the road when those sets are more common, but right now it's an empty spec. I don't know, maybe it's just me but I never really have any faith in either the console manufacturers' hardware claims or these early light reviews. I'm just waiting for John Carmack to weigh in before I'll believe anything.
I took the time out to compare and contrast between the Xbox 360 & PS3 and I came to to this conclusion.
Xbox 360 has a CPU FPS of 115.2 GFlops
PS3 has a CPU FPS of 218 GFlops
Xbox 360 has a GPU FPS of around 884.8 GFlops*
PS3 has a GPU FPS of 1.8TFlops
Xbox 360 has a combined FPS of 1TFlops
PS3 has a combined FPS of 2.18TFlops
Xbox 360 has a DVD-ROM
PS3 has a BD-ROM
Xbox 360 is WiFi ready
PS3 is WiFi built-in
Xbox 360 has 3 x USB 2.0 ports
PS3 has 6 x USB 2.0 ports
Xbox 360 has support for 4 wireless controllers
PS3 has support for 7 wireless (Bluetooth) controllers
Xbox 360 uses Memory Units
PS3 uses MS Standard/Duo/Pro, SD standard/mini & Compact Flash Type I/II
Xbox 360 has support for select Xbox1 games
PS3 has support for PS1 & PS2 games
Xbox 360 has support for 1 720p & 1080i display
PS3 has support for 2 480p, 720p, 1080i & 1080p displays
Note:
* Derived from subtracting published Overall System Floating-Point Performance of 1TFlops with reported CPU GFlops
Source:
Wikipedia's PS3 Tech Specs
Official Xbox 360 Fact Sheet
Xbox 360's reported CPU GFlops
Something's gotta be in the gaming news cycle, and both products were announced at just about the same time. This is your basic gamer pundit wankfest.
I don't care which platform has better pixeltextureshader crap and which has wifi/bluetooth integrated 10-terabyte storage systems.
It's all about the software. Are the games going to be any good? Are they going to be fun to play? Is Sony going to release games which are mostly based on the same semi-feminine anime-based spikey-haired protagonist model which has been in vogue since FF VII was released? Will it consist of the same rehashed genres and retreads of old games? Let's face it, there hasn't been that much innovation in video games in the past 10 years, aside from the now mega-long video sequences I have to sit through for 20 minutes while the narrative is scrolling across the screen in action genres. The stuff which was released in 1996 is comparable to the stuff being released in 2005. Yes, graphics have improved since the PS1. And there are some innovative games. But let's see, Mario is from the Atari age. I remember playing original Metal Gear on NES. FPS, RPG, fighters, racing games, sports games, stealth games, they're all retreads. Games based on playing cards are now somewhat popular, as if people couldn't sit down and play Magic with each other.
I know it's old age talking, but I'm still waiting for something really amazing and enlightening. AI, maybe. New peripherals, maybe. But until I see something spectacular I'll probably opt out of dishing out 300-400 bucks for either one of these babies. Not very many games push the genres they are pigeonholed in. I think the gaming industry is really stagnating. Why not make a good FPS rpg, or a game that puts together action, racing, and stealth?
Much like Hollywood, the game industry has reached that mature phase in the business where mass product sells and indies and innovative genres are pulled off the shelves. Unlike games of old, the large budgets required to pull off a console make unique games more and more rare, which adds to my own trepidation about blowing a load of cash on a new system.
Xbox360 vs PS3? Who cares?