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Smoke and Mirrors from Sony and Microsoft
An anonymous reader writes "History tells us: Don't believe what you're hearing about the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.There was a lot of hype last week about the next generation of game machines. Microsoft said the Xbox 360 will ultimately reach 1 billion consumers worldwide, while Sony gave a laundry list of features for the PlayStation 3, showing some jaw dropping footage along the way. (Nintendo promised a Revolution, but didn't go much further than that.)
I hate to be a wet blanket, but it's time to come back to reality."
I usually remembered some fantastic games coming near the end of the lifecycle, like Earthworm Jim 2 for the SNES or Return of Joker for NES. Developers learn the intricacies of what you can do, and do more amazing stuff as time goes by. Better perhaps than even these artificial demos. Respect the software.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Since when does reality have anything to do with videogames?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
History tells me that I shouldn't expect anything exciting from new consoles yet I still am intrigued by the work the marketing teams go through to bring us their latest and greatest... I am even more intrigued that we have people posting this crap (as if we didn't already know it was all bullshit) to their blogs and making themselves sound like they know something we don't.
Since so many people these days are into spouting off basically unsubstantiated rumor and making it appear legit through our "new media outlets" I'll go ahead and state what *I* believe the console makers should do!
Enjoy.
You know what I want from gaming consoles? Something *new*. When I say *new* I don't mean hi-def resolutions, better sound, faster game play, or even high density storage mediums. When I say *new* I mean I want to see something I have never in my life seen before...
Problem is that we are stuck in a loop of the same rehashed cafeteria lunches with gaming. "Green beans" slopped on my tray is the same as "Emerald Pods". HL2 and Doom3 are the same as Wolf3D and various others.
It really disappoints me when I am thrilled with simple games like Ms. Pacman, Tetris, and Bejeweled variants yet I am extremely bored with "amazing and real life AI", "hi-def graphics", etc.
Gran Turismo 1 was the end all of racing games apparently as GT2, GT3, and now GT4 (and various other similar racing variants) have all been abysmal remakes of the original. I remember saying how revolutionary Quake1 was. Everything after has been bleh. I think I have made my point...
Sony and MSFT: You want to make me excited about a console? Give me some really incredible titles that are something new and exciting rather than just renamed and rehashed green beans. I guarantee that if you can impress me with some titles you can impress all the people and even those that believe that people like me are just ignoring the "important subtle differences between similar genres". You don't even have to have fancy pre-fab rendering, lifelike graphics, or tons of CPU horsepower. All you need is a new and revolutionary idea that makes me want to play it again and again and again. You won't even have to spend millions on hardware and software research.
Hopefully this will give you a few ideas of what to do. I'll be waiting...
...that ALL Xbox 360 gameplay demos were actually run on Apple Power Mac G5s.
Seems like they'd have prototypes at least stable enough to demo at the premier gaming and entertainment show of the year for something that's supposed to ship in less than a couple quarters...
In fact, I can't believe that TIME and all of the huge mainstream coverage that Xbox 360 has gotten hasn't mentioned this. All many of the articles say is that the Xbox 360 is using "a processor from IBM", something likely to not raise most anyone's eyebrows.
But to not mention that Microsoft's multi-billion dollar entry into the next generation of console gaming, heavily watched by many investors and financial sectors, uses the processor family that *Macs* have used since 1994, and most closely related to Apple's current computers, so closely, in fact, that their own Xbox 360 development and demos runs directly on Power Macs? I mean, yeah, I realize that Microsoft or anyone using the best processor architecture for a particular application isn't news; but Microsoft using *Macs* to develop AND demo their next generation console isn't worth a mention to anyone but C|Net?
You know, it would be nice if you could at least tell where the submitter's comments end and where the first paragraph of the linked article begin. Quotation marks, anyone? "From the article:" perhaps?
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Funny, I've never understood why people will pay $x000 for a tricked-out gaming PC when they can get the same performance from a $x00 console.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
This kind of critical reporting is the difference between journalism and PR ("public relations" or the "press releases" that are its lifeblood). But gaming journalism still has a long way to go
FTFA:
"It's not hard to forgive the hardware publishers for a little bit of hyperbole at E3, the annual trade show of the video game industry. It is, after all, their moment in the sun. But now that the crowds have gone home and the booth babes have changed back into street clothes, it's time to recognize that a fair number of the promises made last week will quietly fade away."
The best time to report critical insights, especially those counter to PR claims, is during the "moment in the sun". When everyone's paying attention. Otherwise, reporting is a footnote, and the PR floods the media. Result: most people believe the unopposed PR. Gaming coverage has been improving, as competition heats up in a bigger market of people with competing interests, not just gaming.
To see how badly "reporting" can go wrong, just look at the synthetic world of national and international affairs in the mass media, rarely insightful, and totally distorted in representing reality. With games becoming ever more realistic, and reality ever more bent to our imaginations, it's ironic that reporting on reality becoming more of a fantasy game, while gaming reporting becomes more realistic.
--
make install -not war
...of all those who haven't seen it yet;
Here is an article where the chief financial officer of nVidia confirms that the supposedly "in-game" footage from the new PS3 is a load of cobblers, cos the RSX chip isn't finished yet and doesn't exist in a workable form.
Sigh... it's the emotion engine/missile guidance systems all over again.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
I cant play Xenogears, Xenosaga, most Final Fantasies and a whole host of other games on my PC's. You don't buy a console because of the hardware, its all about the games you can get on it. You wouldn't happen to also be the type of person who can't understand why someone would choose to run Windows over Linux when their livelihood requires they run something that only runs on Windows are you?
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I know Santa Clause isn't real, but it's still fun to get excited about x-mas.
This is Slashdot, my friend.. the higher up the UID's go, the more likely there are lots of pre-teens and teens.. many of which require you to preface your comment with *SPOILER*. Poor kids.
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Funny, I've never understood how people think a pentium 3 733 has near as much horsepower as an athlon 64 3000+. Or that the game even looks nearly as good on the console.
As a huge fan of both consoles and PCs, they both have their place. I would never try to play an FPS on a console. I tried getting along with it for months with Halo 2, but it was like trying to ride a monkey instead of a horse. It's just not meant to be. I also would never want the "latest and greatest" cutting edge game to be on the console - why? Because the graphics aren't going to look nearly as good - how can they, when the video card is about 3 or 4 years old?
Making blanket statements isn't going to work. Consoles do some things well, PCs do some things well. Until I can treat a console like a PC (ie: hook it up to an extremely high resolution monitor and have the option to use a keyboard and mouse), for me, it's going to be my second choice system. With that said, trying to have all my friends huddle around my monitor as we play Double Dash isn't going to work either. There's certain pros and cons to each, and it's up to the individual to decide what they like more - high powered FPS games with input devices that allow for much higher response times, or something that always "just works", can be played with tons of friends, everyone sitting around the living room drinking some beers.
That's mighty ambitious when 1.6 billion people, a quarter of the earth's population don't even have electricity. We barely have more than a billion TV sets in the world. Either they're counting on a population explosion or they're using funny math, like counting anybody with a friend or FOAF who owns an Xbox360.
Kutaragi of Sony just announced that the PS3 isn't a game console, it's an entertainment system. From the beginning, Sony's been trying to turn the Playstation into something it's not, an all in one household entertainment system. This time around, Microsoft is making no qualms about the fact that they've designed the X-Box to be more than just a gameconsole as well.
So, we have the PS3 which isn't a game machine but just happens to play games.
The X-Box 360, which is touted as a media center that plays games.
-and-
The Revolution, the console that Nintendo company big wigs say is designed to play games, games, and more games. In fact, 5 generations of games all under one roof, most of which will be instantly accessible over the internet at little or, in some cases, no cost.
I don't know, I've got media center and powerful computer covered. I have a 7 disc DVD changer, so no console is going to replace that. I have a ReplayTV. I also have a stereo that I stream audio from my computer and the internet to, so I can't see myself using any of the music functions on any of these consoles. What I want, to complement all of this, is a game console. Do Sony and MS actually expect me to toss out my entire entertainment system to replace it with their all in one box? Heck no...I don't want to pay extra cash for things I already have.
Looks like I'm going to be buying the Revolution this time around, the only console without an inflated price and an identity crisis.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
...and in fact, I *still* play Mario Kart (and a few others) on my SNES from time to time. And everyone that comes by the house that I can convince to play it with me agrees, it has a lot of gameplay value and stays fun for hours.
-Valiss