Does Microsoft Have First-Mover Advantage?

Gamasutra's question of the week feature just finished gathering up reactions to the query "Is the 'first mover' advantage an important factor in launching a next-generation console?" From the article: "For first mover advantage to work, the new platform must have credibility in two areas. First, it must be seen as being a significant technical advance over the current generation, otherwise it has no real purpose in the market. Secondly, there must be confidence in the new platform from both the public and the industry, without this the new platform will struggle to reach critical mass. The second mover can negate the first mover's advantage by having a higher level of credibility in these two areas. This explains the current tone of Sony spin."

Comments

Dreamcast

[Apreche]

Did SEGA have first mover advantage with the Dreamcast?

Re:Dreamcast

[niskel]

I was just about to suggest the same thing and only hope history repeats itself, only this time with the XBox360.

Re:Dreamcast

[NanoGator]

"Did SEGA have first mover advantage with the Dreamcast?"

Yes. But the advantage wasn't enough.

Advantage != Automatic Win.

Re:Dreamcast

[Fr05t]

"Advantage != Automatic Win."

Unfortunately for MS, it seems like they believe that First == Win. God knows they will hack and slash out whatever functionality (despite its importance) to ship 360 before the PS3. They already seem to be neglecting their starting line up so they can launch "the good stuff" when PS3 goes on the shelves.

Re:Dreamcast

[jinzumkei]

I was just wondering why you want the Xbox 360 to flop? Are you just a jaded saturn fan who wishes every console after the saturn to fail or are you just an @sshole?

Re:Dreamcast

[Fr05t]

I'll put my money on "Can't master FPS with a console controller, and his younger siblings spank him in Halo 5 times a day.", or maybe yeah he is an @.

Re:Dreamcast

[Shadow Wrought]

Even more fun is getting fragged by your kids (and their friends). At least I know when I go into it that I'm not going to win. Those few occasions when I actually do pull off the upset are even more fun then;-)

Re:Dreamcast

[RollTissue]

They already seem to be neglecting their starting line up so they can launch "the good stuff" when PS3 goes on the shelves

You hit the nail on the head. It isn't about "first move advantages" at all. It's about post launch supporting content, ie, entertaining titles.

Re:Dreamcast

[llevity]

I know this is probably just anti-Microsoft /. sentiment, but you do realize if Microsoft fails, and Nintendo fails, then Sony is the monopoly in console land.

Competition is always beneficial to the consumer. I cheer on even systems I don't personally plan on buying because I personally like the benefits competition brings.

Re:Dreamcast

[niskel]

This is a tad anti-Microsoft but really it's more along the lines that I prefer Sony's offerings and have always respected Nintendo. I am looking forward to the PS3 because the system just appeals to me more with the Blu Ray discs and the NVidia GPU and such. Nintendo seems to be holding their cards close to theri chest but the idea of (legally) playing all the old school games sounds really cool. I am just not as enthused towards the new XBox but I do agree with the prospect that there needs to be competition.

Re:Dreamcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Having Microsoft around does absolutely nothing for competition in the console market.

Microsoft tried to do what they did in the office software market where they always claim to have 'the most bullet points'. That isn't competition. That ends up being just a nuisance for the console market.

It's a lot like in chess where you have someone come along who insists to play out the end of games even when the game has been decided.

Re:Dreamcast

[Ra5pu7in]

Yes. But the advantage wasn't enough.

Actually, based on the critera given, SEGA only had half of the first mover advantage with the Dreamcast. Technologically it was superior to previous consoles, but SEGA had the somewhat recent failure of the Saturn - evidence that releasing superior technology first is not a guarantee of success. They did not have the requisite "confidence in the new platform from both the public and the industry". Instead, SEGA had a small cadre of devoted public and limited support from developers, while many more were willing to wait for the "second mover".

One advantage Microsoft has is that they have demonstrated a willingness to back their console with their bank - so there is more public and industry confidence that the new platfrom won't fail in the way the Dreamcast did. Also Microsoft has the money to buy developers and licenses as needed for the apparency of industry confidence. These may give it a better advantage than SEGA ever had.

============

As to someone else's comment about a Sony monopoly - never fear, Microsoft will not surrender even if it fails by some people's standards. Nintendo isn't likely to either, though it is becoming more and more of a niche gaming console than a serious contender for the top market-share.

Re:Dreamcast

[Anonymous Coward]

What you say might be true in Dreamcast/Xbox circles.

It has no relation to reality though.

Nintendo will be in the console market long after Microsoft has left. I doubt we will see another console coming out of Redmond after the 360. Things are going so badly for the 360 project I wouldn't be surprised if the 360 doesn't even make it to store shelves.

My company is part of a 10+ billion dollar a year market. MS doesn't remotely have the cash to buy their way into the market. If they did, they would have long ago. It is questionable if they even have the cash to keep themselves alive with virtually no console developer support for their platform.

The bleeding like mad Xbox project is something a lot of people up in Redmond would love to see ended. The flat to sinking stock price and slowing revenue growth of Microsoft's key products make it certain that Microsoft isn't going to be handing out the cash/incentives for the big console dev houses like ours to even think about leaving the Sony camp.

Re:Dreamcast

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

Might I suggest that maybe Dreamcast had the last mover's disadvantage? I think it launched in the grey area where people questioned whether it was to compete with N64 and PSX, or was it to get the jump on xbox, ps2 and gamecube?

Re:Dreamcast

[incom]

Considering the saturn sold 9.2mil units, the dreamcast sold 10.6mil units and the xbox sold 19.9mil units, I wouldn't call the saturn a definitive insurmountable failure or the xbox a difinitive success and excellent launching point.
*worldwide sales, jan.2005
*other sales figures of note: PS1 100mil, n64 33mil, ps2 81mil, GC 18mil.

Re:Dreamcast

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

actually he gets spanked by me in halo and halo 2 :P true story.

Re:Dreamcast

[C0rinthian]

Nintendo isn't likely to either, though it is becoming more and more of a niche gaming console than a serious contender for the top market-share.

Marketshare isn't everything. If my info is correct, Nintendo is making as much profit, if not more, than Sony. Not Sony's gaming division, the entire company.

If making more profit than your competitors doesn't make you a serious contender, I don't know what does.

Re:Dreamcast

[Elranzer]

Reggie Files-Aime, is that you?

Re:Dreamcast

[PhotoBoy]

I don't think the Xbox 360 will die the way the Dreamcast did, as Microsoft have proven with Xbox 1 that they are willing to throw as much money as needed to keep their console in the race. They must have made quite a loss in Japan but they are still perservering.

Sadly Sega didn't get first mover advantage because Sony promised a console so powerful it could render Toy Story in real time and that the Emotion Engine was allegedly classified as a super-computer by the US government and could not be exported to China or Iraq! I know so many people who decided to wait for the PS2 so they could play "classics" like Ridge Racer 5 and Tekken Tag Tournament... It was like the Emperor's New Clothes when those games came out...

Will this happen again with the X360? I don't think it will or at least not as badly as it did with the DC. MS has built up good brand loyalty with the Xbox, whereas the Dreamcast was launched with the shadow of the MegaCD, 32X and Saturn's failure hanging over it. And of course it sounds like MS are just as canny at the game of spoiling launches. They are apparently planning to launch Halo 3 at the same time the PS3 comes out...

Re:Dreamcast

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

actually it is more like when you have someone come along and insist on playing chess only on their diamond encrusted golden set of chess, which may or may not be level, causing some serious gaming instabilities. . .

Take it as a shot to Microsoft or don't. It's really open to interpretation.

Re:Dreamcast

[ElleyKitten]

I agree. I'm a Nintendo fangirl, but I still like the benefits of having 3 competitive systems. Stuff is cheaper (then I think they'ld be otherwise), there are more games (again, IMHO), and each system can cater to a little bit different niche instead of one having to be everything for everyone. I hate the attitude that one system must "win". They can all easily co-exist nicely, making more and better and cheaper games for us. :)

Re:Dreamcast

[koi88]

Did SEGA have first mover advantage with the Dreamcast?

Yes. But people wanted to wait for the incredibly fast Toy-Story-like-graphics-in-real-time-rendering PS 2.
The same might happen to XBox 360.
People will say: Yeah, it's nice, but Sony's PS 3 seems to be better, so I'll wait. Sony's hype-machine still beats Microsoft's.

Re:Dreamcast

[DeadScreenSky]

God knows they will hack and slash out whatever functionality (despite its importance) to ship 360 before the PS3.

Care to list any examples of this? The closest I can think of is maybe a HD disc drive, but a built-in hard disk instead is going to give far more of an actual gaming benefit. There's no way the system could come with both and still be reasonably priced.

They already seem to be neglecting their starting line up so they can launch "the good stuff" when PS3 goes on the shelves.

Huh? Are you referring to Halo 3, I assume? Nothing wrong with leaving that to launch next year, especially since Halo 2 was only released a year prior to the 360's launch date. They still have system seller sequels like PGR3 and DOA4 (the Xbox1 launch titles in these series were the second and third Xbox titles to launch a million units), along with plenty of other games - including significantly more Japanese launch support this time. What's missing exactly?

Atari

[dtfinch]

The old Atari Jaguar was a highly unsuccessful first mover.

Re:Atari

[superpulpsicle]

It all comes down to the financial backings. Sony has an existing PS2 to backup the PSP and PS3. Xbox has M$ windows to backup xbox360.

Atari had nothing when Jaguar was coming out. The PSP can sustain itself in the market till Christmas 2005 with no new games, literally.

Re:Atari

[Keeper]

The Jaguar wasn't a first mover. 3D0 was first mover for that generation. (not that it really changes the impact of the statement you were making ... :))

Article's credibility

[dannyitc]

Quoted from TFA: You never get a second chance to make a first impression. The Atari 2600, NES, Genesis, and PlayStation were the leaders of their respective generations. They were also the first. Is this guy crazy? First of all, SNES outsold the Genesis on the worldwide market, with the Genesis barely outselling the SNES in the United States. Also, the PlayStation's launch was predated by the Sega Saturn, so the claim that they were the "first" is clearly wrong. Someone needs to work on their fact checking.

Re:Article's credibility

[Fr05t]

"Someone needs to work on their fact checking."

Journalists checking their facts? That's sooooo 1990, get with the times!

Re:Article's credibility

[dogbowl]

And the Atari 2600 was hardly the first as well.
That honor belongs to the Fairchild Channel F. That ugly sucker was out about a year earlier...

Re:Article's credibility

[sloose]

Actually, I believe the Genesis outsold the SNES in worldwide sales. It was quite popular in Europe and Japan. It also wasn't the first out. Turbographx 16 was the first out in that generation.

Re:Article's credibility

[FidelCatsro]

To be really pedantic (in a silly way) there were probably only 10,000 or so genesiss sold in Europe and japan ;) The Genesis was the US version of the MegaDrive (IIRC it was also called Megadrive in Japan).
Though im not sure , but i do think the _SNES by the end of the 16 bit era was ahead on sales , but it was a rather close race

Re:Article's credibility

[Guppy06]

"Journalists checking their facts?"

Apparently "fact" is an archaic term that means "senior administration official."

Re:Article's credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Genesis worldwide = 30,000,000
SNES worldwide = 49,000,000
So no, the SNES was well ahead.

Yes

[Gogo0]

Yes, of course they do.

Rushed First out: Saturn
First out: Dreamcast

Yes, Sega was in deep financial doo-do for both, but that doesnt matter. Being the first is totally irrelevant to a hype machine (Sony) and franchise loyalty (Nintendo).

Though if the 360 has any kind of Halo at launch; even a Halo text adventure by Infocom (like it matters, people will think it's innovation), then they have a good chance at getting nearly their entire original Xbox customer base back.

Re:Yes

[Guppy06]

"even a Halo text adventure by Infocom"

You are likely to be gibbed by a grue...

Re:Yes

[rohlfinator]

"Though if the 360 has any kind of Halo at launch; even a Halo text adventure by Infocom (like it matters, people will think it's innovation), then they have a good chance at getting nearly their entire original Xbox customer base back."
Sad but true, although there are still some 12 million Xbox owners that don't own Halo 2. Even still, Microsoft needs to gain a much larger userbase next generation if they want any chance of competing with the PS3 for real. And several post-E3 surveys showed the anticipation for the 360 to be even lower than for the Revolution, so Nintendo may be more of a factor next gen as well.

Re:Yes

[default luser]

Rushed First out: Saturn
First out: Dreamcast

You're missing a few steps here.

Genesis: first to market of the REAL 16-bit generation, it had nearly 2 years lead over the SNES, and still managed to nearly fail. Were it not for Sonic, some impressive 3rd-party developer deals and the 6-button controller just in time to combat the SNES, Sega would have been dead long before the Dreamcast.

SegaCD, 32x: wasted efforts that just managed to make Sega look inconsistent. The SegaCD had the capacity of the Saturn without the hardware, and the 32x had the hardware of the Saturn without the capacity. Sega didn't seem to get the fact that they needed BOTH to make the jump to the next generation, and that anything less would be greeted by the market as a largely unsupported stopgap.

Honestly, if Sega hadn't been dicking around with the SegaCD and 32x, they probably could have made a stronger, earlier release of the Saturn. As it was, they had pissed off developers and gamers alike by delivering stopgap solutions.

Sega's hardware division was already fucked by the time they released the Saturn. They just didn't want to admit it.

It's a little bit of everything

[alvinrod]

One of the main reasons the Xbox did as well as it did was due to Halo. It had one killer app that everyone just needed to have and that you couldn't get anywhere else.

What will end up making or breaking the Xbox 360 are the games that are available when the product launches. This article has a list of probable launch titles for the Xbox 360. Team Xbox also has a few predictions. The question is, are any of these killer apps that I just need to have and that I won't be able to get anywhere else?

A quick glance at the list and I know there isn't anything on there that I just have to play right away. Some of you might differ, but to me it looks like a lot of those games are more of the same old that will probably see PS3 versions with the possibility of slightly better graphics.

The launch titles are especially important for the Xbox 360 because there are still a lot of doubts about the compatibility of Xbox games. Apparently, some explanation has been given about hos it will work, but I've heard a few rumors that say backwards compatibility won't be there. If there aren't any games I need to have for the Xbox 360 and I can't play my Xbox games on them right out of the box, then do I really need an Xbox 360 right away?

The final factor is the price and what I get for it. Sony has called the Xbox 360, the Xbox 1.5, which I won't entirely believe, but does have a few points. Right now it has a plain old DVD drive in it. Where's the next-gen media format support? A recent EGM article hinted that this might be upgradable to HD-DVD if MS feels the need to do it. The Xbox will also serve as a media center, which I really don't need. So is $300 worth the price of admission? Considering that the PS3 is expected to launch for $400 or more and include more next-gen bells and whistles, I might consider waiting for that if I needed a media center. Then again, Nintendo is trying to ship their console for $200 or less. Granted that Nintendo isn't offering an all-in-one package, but it is an affordable gaming console. The only problem is that I'd have to wait almost another year for it to come out.

As metioned in the article, brand loyalty will certainly play a part in what people decide to do. Since I own all three major consoles, I don't really see myself as loyal to any particular brand. Each has its merits though.

If I had to make a prediction, I'm going to guess that the Xbox 360 will do quite well in America taking the number 2 spot and picking up market share, but will do poorly in Japan.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[I8TheWorm]

Strange. As an owner of both a PS2 and an XBox, I openly admit I bought the XBox because the graphics were better, and because it had a hard drive built in, eliminating the need for losable (although portable) memory cards.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[sehryan]

If you own all three of the current consoles, then what's the problem with waiting a year for the Revolution? It isn't like new games for your current systems are going to dry up that quickly.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Where's the next-gen media format support?

It doesn't exist yet (drives and media aren't available yet). Additionally, games don't need friggin 50gb of space, and access times on first gen games will be deadly slow. Finally, hardware costs and media are drastically more expensive.

I've heard a few rumors that say backwards compatibility won't be there

It will be. I heard a rumor that the PS3's explodes the 3rd time you turned it on. Basing buying decisions on rumor and inuendo is dumb.

So is $300 worth the price of admission?
Considering that the PS3 is expected to launch for $400 or more and include more next-gen bells and whistles

The only technical "feature" the PS3 has over the xbox is the blu-ray drive. And personally, I'm not convinced it is an advantage yet (it'll be worthless if HD-DVD catches on and Blu-ray doesn't). Sony has the buzzwords down, but if both consoles implement the feature correctly the experience doesn't change (it doesn't matter how the wireless controllers communicate, if they both work wirelessly; it doesn't matter if a unit can output 1080p if no games can render effectively at that resolution; etc).

The xbox has a built in hard drive, which the PS3 lacks. Additionally, if you're into online gaming, Sony STILL hasn't announced their gameplan in that area; Live is probably one of the few things Microsoft got REALLY right with the first gen Xbox. Finally, the "media center" components are supposed to be able to stream music off of your computer (so you can create custom soundtracks while playing your game).

Personally, if I'm looking at the $100 tradeoff, Sony isn't a winner. Blu-ray isn't worth an extra $100 to me. Factor in needing to purchase some storage device to store your save games, and it looks even worse.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Dutch Gun]

I think that people are overstating the consumer demand for next-generation media format. Granted, high-def movie playback will be nice, but I think it's perhaps a bit too early for the market to embrace that technology. Frankly, standard DVDs are just too popular at the moment (meaning the new format will have to overcome a tremendous amount of inertia). Lots of folks have just purchased their first DVD players in the last few years.

Not that it really matters to me who wins the console wars... As a game developer, I'll likely be developing for all three platforms, and I'll have all three platforms at home as well.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[slashrogue]

Have to agree with the Halo thing. I had a PS2 but I bought an Xbox only to play Halo. I did end up buying several other games for it but never really cared for them. Eventually I gave it all to my brother and in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have dropped all that money on a console for 1 game (but I had the disposable income to do it at that point), but Halo was awesome to play.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only technical "feature" the PS3 has over the xbox is the blu-ray drive."

Look at my thumb.

Gee you're dumb.

Come on guy, you just make yourself look foolish making inane statements like that.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[cowscows]

I agree. The difference between standard DVD and the next gen isn't nearly as compelling as the jump from VHS to DVD was. Maybe if you've got a hugemongous HD television, but I don't, and most people that I know don't either. Maybe another five years down the line, but it'll almost be time for another generation of consoles by then.

The smaller jump from the current standard, not to mention the potential difficulties with the two competing formats is going to slow the adoption of BluRay and HD-DVD. It's not going to be anything like DVD's were. It's just not that big of a deal.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Saige]

Additionally, if you're into online gaming, Sony STILL hasn't announced their gameplan in that area; Live is probably one of the few things Microsoft got REALLY right with the first gen Xbox.

If you think they got it right with the first Xbox, then wait until you see the new Xbox Live that's coming out with the 360. I've seen so much about it, actually seen the thing running, seen some of the support things coming with it - this is the #1 thing that's got me so interested in picking up a 360.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Really? I like how you countered my arguement with ... nothing.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really serious? Somewhere out there in there is someone as dumb as you sitting at a computer typing out such crap?

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Morinaga]

I'm going to keep it simple and say that I'm convinced. I'll be purchasing the 360 and not waiting the additional year for PS3.

I'm not really ready to give a consice bullet point break down of 360 vs. PS3. I just think it looks fun, is in my budget and is next generation enough for me with features that appeal to me.

The only thing PS3 has going for it is the Blu-ray. Even if I take that at face value and assume it's the next generation movie playing format and there will be movies available in this format... I have to ask myself, did I get my previous console and NOT buy a DVD player? Well, I still bought DVD players.

But the bottom line is that PS3 doesn't even factor in to my buying decision because they aren't even part of the equation when the 360 comes out. As long as there are compelling games to play I think the first out the gate will pay big dividends for 360.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[jimi the hippie]

"The xbox has a built in hard drive, which the PS3 lacks."

Why are you comparing one generation to the next. IF you want to make a real comparison, why not mention the XBox2 (which also doesn't have a built in HDD).

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[jimi the hippie]

'nother question... Why'd you choose to ignore all the other technological features that the PS3 has and XBox2 doesn't?

Like the 7 controller max (as opposed to 4) or the dual display output (as opposed to single) or the support for 1080p (where XBox2 only supports 1080i). Plus the PS3's processor is (in theory, we've yet to see in practice) much better than the XBox2's. I'll give you one thing that the XBox2 has over the PS3; the amount of RAM. I'd really like to see Sony's unit ship with 512 MB, but maybe it will, it's still early to tell.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[king-manic]

The only technical "feature" the PS3 has over the xbox is the blu-ray drive

Neither machines specs have been nailed down. The PS3 will come out after the xbox 360, which means 100% that in many areas it will be technically better. If we can see it or not is another issue. Your speculating that sony won't responde at all to anything Microsoft does.

Live is probably one of the few things Microsoft got REALLY right with the first gen Xbox

Live is great. However the vast majority of Xbox owners aren't on live. So while it's great, online gamign is not that much of an attraction, expecially pay for play online.

Personally, if I'm looking at the $100 tradeoff, Sony isn't a winner. Blu-ray isn't worth an extra $100 to me. Factor in needing to purchase some storage device to store your save games, and it looks even worse.

Again your speculating, blu-ray may be worth he 100$, DVD was worth the 100$ for the PS2. You might have the same phenomenon where everybody grabs one as a cheap blu-ray player. Like all the japanese did for the PS2.

It's an open race, both competitors look strong, Sony has the inertia of it's past success. Microsoft has it's recent successes and a solid game plan. But Lack of backwards capatability will hurt MS, they need Halo3 out asap(you would have to be an idiot to beleive they can swing Backwards capatability with a different GPU and CPU ).

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

The Xbox 360 DOES come with a harddrive. I was intending to compare the PS3 and the Xbox 360, but thanks for pointing out my typo.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[jimi the hippie]

Nowhere have I heard that it will definately come with a HDD. I know it will be detachable, and have heard that it (or possibly a budget version released later) will not come with one (to save costs).

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[cgenman]

Where's the next-gen media format support?

It doesn't exist yet (drives and media aren't available yet). Additionally, games don't need friggin 50gb of space, and access times on first gen games will be deadly slow. Finally, hardware costs and media are drastically more expensive.

I don't think I've ever worked on a game that didn't max out the available space. Admittedly, I haven't worked on a lot of games. But sometimes you would like to pack-in pregen video and don't have the space, or would like to fork all of your audio tracks and apply a pre-generated filter over each one, or would like to stream pregen movies as backgrounds in your metagame, etc. Maybe you'd like to precomp 96 lightmaps on all of your terrain for time-of-day effects and load the appropriate one. Maybe you're faced with an intractable show-stopper on an in-game cutscene with days to go, and you have to decide between pre-generating it or cutting the level. More space always comes in handy.

I've heard a few rumors that say backwards compatibility won't be there

It will be. I heard a rumor that the PS3's explodes the 3rd time you turned it on. Basing buying decisions on rumor and inuendo is dumb.

Microsoft has said that it will be "selectively compatible," which is to say, it will play Halo and maybe the game you are trying to play. Anyone in the emulation scene can tell you that almost emulated is a nice way of saying not done. Of course, they will have time to finish the emulation later, but that doesn't help early adopters out.

So is $300 worth the price of admission?
Considering that the PS3 is expected to launch for $400 or more and include more next-gen bells and whistles

I'm not sure where you're getting these numbers. Nobody knows how much any of this will cost. The PS3 has some bells and whistles, but it's also slated to ship a year later, which should proportionally reduce cost. Sony is also making a lot of the hardware themselves, which saves them a bit more... that lets them ignore sunk development cost at the beginning. But both companies have some of the deepest pockets in any industry.

The only technical "feature" the PS3 has over the xbox is the blu-ray drive. And personally, I'm not convinced it is an advantage yet (it'll be worthless if HD-DVD catches on and Blu-ray doesn't).

I'm not sure I see why feature is in quotations. If HD-DVD catches on and Blu-Ray doesn't (which I expect will happen), The PS3 will still have 10X the storage capacity of the Xbox. That's a pretty huge advantage. I think you'll quickly see games being ported from the PS3 chafing at the smaller size.

The xbox has a built in hard drive, which the PS3 lacks. Additionally, if you're into online gaming, Sony STILL hasn't announced their gameplan in that area; Live is probably one of the few things Microsoft got REALLY right with the first gen Xbox. Finally, the "media center" components are supposed to be able to stream music off of your computer (so you can create custom soundtracks while playing your game).

Live is great. Live is wonderful. I really don't want to deal with Microsoft's bloody detailed and occasionally contradictory requirements around Live, nor implementing the buggar in a way that's consistent with the look and feel of a different game. But Microsoft is requiring all X360 games to play nice with Live features, which will be a pain in the tail for all developers everywhere. It's frustrating... as a gamer, it makes me want to buy a 360, but as a developer it makes me want to strangle them. The "media center" stuff appears to be a red herring, if for no other reason than you will need to be sharing your folders over a wireless network, and you should under no circumstances ever share your folders over a wireless network. And, of course, the HDD is a great touch, as always, that I wish Sony shipped with standard.

I must say, as a developer the one feature that I would want in a piece of ha

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Neither machines specs have been nailed down. The PS3 will come out after the xbox 360, which means 100% that in many areas it will be technically better. If we can see it or not is another issue. Your speculating that sony won't responde at all to anything Microsoft does.

By 4-6 months. The major specs have already been announced. Devs are playing with alpha hardware. There won't be any revolutionary changes to the core components in the system. The processor and GPU are tapped out. The only thing I can think of that they can easily change is the amount of on-board memory, but that would drive the cost up even further -- I can't see them doing that.

So ... what else can they change that really makes much of an impact?

Yes, this is speculation. However, it isn't baseless speculation.

Live is great. However the vast majority of Xbox owners aren't on live. So while it's great, online gamign is not that much of an attraction, expecially pay for play online.

1.4 million subscribers ... 20 million consoles. Yeah, 7% definately isn't the vast majority. But it is definately a significant number. The rate at which that number is growing is also not something that should be ignored.

Online play isn't an attraction? The entire MMORPG genre is based around that entire concept! Online play adds rediculous replay value to good games, so from my perspective it is well worth it. I've been a fan of online play since I first played Subspace, and am convinced that any console without a good online service will have a limited future.

In college everyone loved playing networked games. It was easy to do, with every computer on a LAN. But without that kind of setup, network play is difficult to organize. A good online service adds the pieces necessary for that kind of gameplay.

I'm willing to pay $50/year for that kind of service. The way I look at it, in the end I actually come out ahead; I buy fewer games and play them longer.

Again your speculating, blu-ray may be worth he 100$, DVD was worth the 100$ for the PS2. You might have the same phenomenon where everybody grabs one as a cheap blu-ray player. Like all the japanese did for the PS2.

This is something I don't get ... why the hell would you use a game console like this? The DVD player for the PS2 was the most god-aweful thing I'd ever used. The video quality wasn't great either. I don't know how bad the xbox's player was, but I'm sure it wasn't anything special.

I buy a game console to play games, not to watch movies. If you want an all-in-one unit, great. But as a feature for games, I'll pass; it isn't worth $100 to have a checkbox on a featurelist and more in-game fmv.

you would have to be an idiot to beleive they can swing Backwards capatability with a different GPU and CPU

Now look who's "speculating". You forgot about the different sound subsystem.

They've got a triple core PPC processor clocked 4-5 times higher than the celeron in the original Xbox. They've got more memory. More bandwidth. And much more powerful hardware on the graphics side. Backwards compat through emulation and dynamic recompilation is entirely possible; just look at VPC on a Mac -- current macs can certainly exceed the performance of a 700mhz celeron via Virtual PC. Of course, in the end only time will tell.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Read http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm. The version they are shipping in November comes with a 20gb detachable drive.

There is a rumor that they will ship a budget version of the console without a drive at some point in the future, but it is just rumor at this point. Personally, I don't see that happening -- the hard drive is too much of an essential component of the next generation live service they're touting.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Microsoft has said that it will be "selectively compatible," which is to say, it will play Halo and maybe the game you are trying to play. Anyone in the emulation scene can tell you that almost emulated is a nice way of saying not done. Of course, they will have time to finish the emulation later, but that doesn't help early adopters out.

They're getting the most popular games to work first and working their way down the list. I have a feeling that people are going to be rather surprised by this particular feature, but when you consider what it is they're emulating (essentially a very low-power PC by today's standards) it isn't what I would call an impossible goal. I would certainly enjoy working on a project like that. The trickest part will be emulating the GPU; supposedly the guy in charge of the emulation does some nifty tricks to translate the shader programs used on the nvidia chip to something the ati chip understands, with additional magic somewhere in between.

I'm not sure I see why feature is in quotations. If HD-DVD catches on and Blu-Ray doesn't (which I expect will happen), The PS3 will still have 10X the storage capacity of the Xbox. That's a pretty huge advantage. I think you'll quickly see games being ported from the PS3 chafing at the smaller size.

The only game I've ever played that didn't fit on a single dvd was Myst Revelation; it shipped on 2 single layer dvd's. It installed 6 gigs of data. Perhaps my perceptions are incorrect, but I've never seen games push storage requirements as much as a Myst game, and if they can get a game to fit in under 8 gigs, I don't see how it will be a huge limiting factor for next gen games. The few games that exceed that size can "deal" with using multiple discs. This was much more common when games were on cd, though I haven't played a multi-dvd game this generation (doesn't mean they don't exist, but I certainly haven't seen one). If I had to swap a disc every 10 minutes I'd have an issue, but after 20+ hours of play it isn't a big deal.

I really don't want to deal with Microsoft's bloody detailed and occasionally contradictory requirements around Live, nor implementing the buggar in a way that's consistent with the look and feel of a different game

Yeah, that whole "consistent positive user experience" thing can be a real bitch ... :)

The "media center" stuff appears to be a red herring, if for no other reason than you will need to be sharing your folders over a wireless network, and you should under no circumstances ever share your folders over a wireless network.

Actually, you should never share folders with sensative data over a wireless network. If you don't care about someone else poking through your stuff, it doesn't matter.

I must say, as a developer the one feature that I would want in a piece of hardware more than any other would be true random multi-streaming through multiple lasers.

You aren't the first person I've heard of asking for a feature like that. Unfortunately, this is a requirement driven purely by the console industry (pc's wouldn't support it, nor would dvd players; they don't need it) which means it will never happen. Not enough benefit to offset the development costs.

As a side note, one of the benefits of sticking with a normal DVD drive instead of a next-gen drive is faster seek/access times, which helps solve part of the problem you're complaining about.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

I did address most of what you mentioned.

The only item I didn't address was the 7 controllers. This isn't a selling feature for me. Four controllers is more than I need actually, as I rarely need more than two. It doesn't seem like something very useful. Hell, how do you get 7 people sitting on the couch? :p The xbox360 only supports 4 controllers, but it also supports 4 wireless headsets in addition to those controllers. THAT is something usable.

Support for 1080p is pointless; games can't use it. The GPU doesn't have the bandwidth required to render at that resolution. Additionally, it is incredibly difficult to find a screen that takes 1080p as an input. I know I certainly won't be owning one in the next 5 years.

Ditto for the dual display. Honestly, I'm expecting the second display port to be dropped before release.

I wouldn't consider the processor in the PS3 a technological advantage, nor something that Sony has a clear edge on. In practice you'll find that one has an advantage in certain areas, while another has an advantage in others. We'll have to wait until we can compare games to see which one comes out on top.

Regarding the RAM, both systems ship with the same amount of RAM. The PS3 ships with a segmented configurating, giving half of it available to the GPU and half to the CPU. The Xbox360 has a unified architecture; the GPU and CPU share the available ram. The configuration in the PS3 gives a bit more bandwidth to the GPU and CPU, but this advantage is negated by the 10mb of "eDram" they stuck on the GPU (ie: the GPU in the xbox 360 doesn't have as much bandwidth available to render a scene, but it also doesn't require as much bandwidth either).

I can't see Sony increasing the amount of ram they ship with on the unit. The cost of producing a single unit has got to be making the accountants nervous already ...

The one thing I'm certain of: the next year (ie: until 7/06) is going to be a great year for gamers. The last time I got this excited about consoles was when the replacements for the snes started debuting.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Nope, just the troll that typed your message.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[billcopc]

I must say, as a developer the one feature that I would want in a piece of hardware more than any other would be true random multi-streaming through multiple lasers.

You aren't the first person I've heard of asking for a feature like that. Unfortunately, this is a requirement driven purely by the console industry (pc's wouldn't support it, nor would dvd players; they don't need it) which means it will never happen. Not enough benefit to offset the development costs.

Kenwood had two CD-Rom drives like that waaaay back in the 20th century. They used Zen True-X technology, which was basically 7 lasers on one disc. I still have my 72x cd-rom and it really does read at 72x (a little over 10 meg per second). I know because it used to crash my PC back then because the shoddy BX chipset couldn't handle the abuse :D

I would LOVE to see a Zen-tech enabled DVD-Rom that could push 7 times 16x, or even just 7 times 8x I don't care. In a console this would be heaven, load times would be almost as fast as a hard drive (excluding seek times, which many developers still don't seem to understand, or care to fix). So where the hell is Zen technology now ? Back then it was hot, but Kenwood's drive was flaky and had a hard time with CD-R discs, so I'm guessing it spoiled the market for Zen, but it was great!

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[C0rinthian]

There are two things that make me lean toward the 360 over the PS3.

1) Live 2) Media Center fuctionality

I've got so much media on my PC that I'd love to get networked into the living room. 360 looks like it will be cheaper than a media center PC, plus it's a console.

Xbox live already rocks, and added features can't hurt.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're basically a twenty something x86 Quake player with a ton of porn/mp3s/movies you've downloaded and you...drumroll...

are leaning towards getting an xbox!!!

Now back to the 150 or so million consumers who are relevant to the console market...

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Interesting, I'd never heard of those. From your description it sounds like they arranged the lasers statically, relative to each other to increase streaming speed (ie: probably no independent control of the heads was possible). It would definately allow it to read data 7 times faster than a normal drive. Do you know what its seek times were like?

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[C0rinthian]

Actually, I've got an extensive MP3 library made up of purchased CD's. Plus I'd like to be able to throw images of my DVD collection onto a server, which would be accessible by a media center PC in the living room.

Besides the questionable legality of ripping DVD's to hard-disk, I don't see any problem with this kind of setup. If they impliment some sort of PVR into the 360, I can easily see having more than one in the house.

BTW, I consider myself a relevant consumer, as I consume products in this market. (Legitimately! With money!)

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[king-manic]

1.4 million subscribers ... 20 million consoles. Yeah, 7% definately isn't the vast majority. But it is definately a significant number. The rate at which that number is growing is also not something that should be ignored.


Your numbers betray you, indeed it grows but most people are content with offlien play. As for your example of MMORPG's, they have relatively small user bases when you compare it against the size of the whole market. 3-4 million is pretty much all the MMORPG players in North america/europe/japan. Korea/China ect have many more but some of that is inflated by people having more then one accounts and the companies count the accounts.

As for paying for it, you may but you and I aren't the whole gaming community, we're nto even representative. The gaming community consists of mostly men, 12-30. a little under half of them cannot pay anything a month.

This is something I don't get ... why the hell would you use a game console like this? The DVD player for the PS2 was the most god-aweful thing I'd ever used. The video quality wasn't great either. I don't know how bad the xbox's player was, but I'm sure it wasn't anything special.

But when it came out, it was the cheapest (or close to) thing in Japan that played DVD's. You are forgetting when the machiens firts came out $500 for a panasonic DVd player was par for the course, for the same price you could get a PS2. Thats why PS2 has such a huge install base and that's why sony waited until blu-ray to make the PS3. Their gambling on a similiar effect.

They've got a triple core PPC processor clocked 4-5 times higher than the celeron in the original Xbox. They've got more memory. More bandwidth. And much more powerful hardware on the graphics side. Backwards compat through emulation and dynamic recompilation is entirely possible; just look at VPC on a Mac -- current macs can certainly exceed the performance of a 700mhz celeron via Virtual PC. Of course, in the end only time will tell.

You also have a GPU whose instruction sets and design are IP of a company that wants nothing to do with the box. They could just obstract it back into pure Direct X and nto the xbox variant but they will nee dgame specific hacks.

Have you ever run an emulator? Generally every game varies, some are 100% other have graphic glitches ect.. The PS2 incorporated the PS1 chip as a IO processor and it even had glitches. Now a 100% software solution is possible, but you need unique software hacks for a lot of games. Ever see Bleem, it could emu most games but required a hack for 40% of the other games. PSXemu too, ZSNES had unique hacks for maybe 10% of the SNES games, and the SNES is bloody simple. You see the problem? Pure software emu isn't goign to be likly. And if MS is going to be Backwards compatable they would have trumpetted it as a feature. I hear very little buzz about that.

I'm fairly neutral about it all, I don't mind there being 3 good consoles out. Nintendo for parties/GF to play. PS3 for what ever Japanese imports and major titles. And a 360 for Bioware games, because the boys down on the southside (I live in edmonton and know some of them) have sworn off ever programming for the PS2 or PS2 like architecture again. I think money form MS had something to do with it too. Although it will have to wait until there is 3 or 4 bioware games before I'd buy one. Halo doesn't appeal to me and ont he xbox very little else does.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Your numbers betray you, indeed it grows but most people are content with offlien play

People used to say the same thing about cable. Look where it's at now. Once people try online gaming, they're hooked. If you assume an even distribution of gamers for Xbox & PS2 are interested in online gaming, then this would yield a significant increase in market share and initial sales for the Xbox360.

little under half of them cannot pay anything a month

If they can't afford $50, they can't afford to purchase a single video game, and they certainly can't afford a console. Oh wait, their parents bought them that stuff? Gee, I wonder what else fits in the xmas stocking ...

But when it came out, it was the cheapest (or close to) thing in Japan that played DVD's. You are forgetting when the machiens firts came out $500 for a panasonic DVd player was par for the course, for the same price you could get a PS2. Thats why PS2 has such a huge install base and that's why sony waited until blu-ray to make the PS3. Their gambling on a similiar effect.

There is a difference this time around: Blu-ray isn't "the" established standard. People aren't going to be purchasing them because they want both a next gen movie format + game box -- they don't know which format will come on top. This means that only people who are convinced that blu-ray will come out on top will consider this a good deal.

You also have a GPU whose instruction sets and design are IP of a company that wants nothing to do with the box. They could just obstract it back into pure Direct X and nto the xbox variant but they will nee dgame specific hacks.

Microsoft made announcment awhile back about having licensed the appropriate IP. In fact, you can read about it here: http://www.gamepro.com/microsoft/xbox360/games/new s/45969.shtml

Have you ever run an emulator? Generally every game varies, some are 100% other have graphic glitches ect.. The PS2 incorporated the PS1 chip as a IO processor and it even had glitches. Now a 100% software solution is possible, but you need unique software hacks for a lot of games.

Exactly right. No solution will be 100% compatible, which is why you didn't see absurd statements about the xbox 360 being 100% compatible with the xbox (and why I scoff every time Sony claims 100% backwards compatibility, because it is a baldfaced lie). They're targeting as many games as possible, starting with the most popular games and working their way down the list. It is certainly an accomplishable goal, unlike your previous statement where you said it would be impossible.

But don't take my word for it; you can read what the guy actually making it work has to say about it: http://www.qbrundage.com/michaelb/pubs/essays/xbox 360.html

You can also read a few more details about how they plan on performing the emulation here: http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=50574

I doubt that the compatibility will be near the 100% level, but I'd be willing to bet that they hit 80%. And personally, I could give a crap if "Bob's adventures in peanut land" works if the games I want to play don't (this was the problem with the PS2 ... half of my [admitedly small] PS1 library didn't work right on the PS2).

And if MS is going to be Backwards compatable they would have trumpetted it as a feature. I hear very little buzz about that.

They announced it at E3. What else do you expect them to be doing at this point?

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Anonymous Coward]

My god what a pathetic person.

" (this was the problem with the PS2 ... half of my [admitedly small] PS1 library didn't work right on the PS2)."

You lying piece of shit. There were about eight or so titles out of the humongous PS1 library that had problems, they are well known.

And you sad little fucks whine when we console developers don't waste our time on your deadend platform.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[apoc06]

well, the fact of the matter is with the whole push for HD content, the FMVs and the textures which give the game its look will need more space. im not saying that the games will take up the whole 50-100 gigs that blu-ray provides, but space constraints should be the last thing that developers should have to worry about. [well, they shouldnt have to worry about ram either, but hey... theres always next generation]

the blu-ray player already plays all formats before it, and the HD-DVD format is supposedly able to be backwards compatible. i am assuming that you can view a HD-DVD disc on a regular DVD player [albeit not in true HD]. that means that in some aspect you should be able to read a HD-DVD disc on the blu-ray player. since they are both using blue lasers, i really wouldnt be too surprised if you were able to find a firmware patch somewhere to read both formats.

and perhaps the market is still too young to fully embrace either next gen format. but with every ps3 having a drive, thats a pretty large install base for the industry to ignore. you will always have a way to get your content into homes.

think about it. if you are in the business of releasing movies, which format would you rather release in? the one with... im guessing here, but with i guess a 20 million or so ps3 userbase or HD-DVD thats struggling to take off, since there are only a select handful that can afford the players at the time?

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[default luser]

Pretty pathetic, as you might imagine. The series had other problems that ultimately killed the concept.

Kenwood produced three drives in the TrueX series: 40x, 52x and 72x.

My roomate, who always liked to buy the latest and greatest, spent over $100 on the 40x TrueX drive when it was released (and the fastest single-speed drives were loud 32x max drives).

The 40x TrueX was a CLV drive, which meant it always read at the same rate ( meaning you got roughly 6x speed x 7 lasers, or ~42x through the whole disc), and changed linear velocity as you got near the edge of the disc. Of course, CAV had benefits and disbenefits: the slow spindle speed meant little noise, but also pathetic seek times. The worst part about CLV was, since the disc spinned slower as you reached the outer areas, the part of the disc with the greatest data density per track had the worst access times.

As for the really bad stuff: the drives had trouble being detected properly by IDE controllers, and were picky about what CD-R discs they would read. Kenwood ultimately had a class-action suit brought against them for the issues surrounding the 40x drives, and they had to pay out. This really hurt the reputation of future TrueX drives.

The 52x was the same drive with a faster CLV rate, ~7x. Spending $150 on a marginal CD-ROM that also wrote CDs seemed like a better invetment by the time this drive hit the market.

The 72x was a marriage of CAV and CLV (and thus, better access times), and though impressive, came ultimately too late. Of course, by then it was obvious that a dedicated CD drive could not survive in the marketplace, regardless of the speed improvements. Kenwood should have added DVD-ROM or CD writer capability.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[king-manic]

There is a difference this time around: Blu-ray isn't "the" established standard. People aren't going to be purchasing them because they want both a next gen movie format + game box -- they don't know which format will come on top. This means that only people who are convinced that blu-ray will come out on top will consider this a good deal.

Actually, at the time DVD was a new standard and it was competeing with Super VCD's. In asia VCD are still common. The PS2 was often bought as a cheap DVD player for a format that was new. In a very similiar way Blu-ray is.

People used to say the same thing about cable. Look where it's at now. Once people try online gaming, they're hooked. If you assume an even distribution of gamers for Xbox & PS2 are interested in online gaming, then this would yield a significant increase in market share and initial sales for the Xbox360.


The problem with online play is the same with PC's as they are with Live, the relative skill level of people are low, and people don't like to lose. MMORPG's do alright because skill isn't such a huge factor, but see how many people play Warcraft 3 in ladder compared to how many play in usemaps. It's about 20% of the players play ladder, the rest play use map settings. The appeal of online play is playing against people, the draw back is unless you've played online a bit everyone will be better then you. Most people would prefer to play offline. There just isn't any appeal to losing, and they dont' want to develope their skill. It's nto like cable. Cable (television or internet) doesn't require you to do anythign but pay. It will reach a saturation point of 10-20% of console gamers, and unless they come out with a full proof way of skill matching, it will peak there. even with good matching, many just don't see a need to go online.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[ElleyKitten]

>>>little under half of them cannot pay anything a month

If they can't afford $50, they can't afford to purchase a single video game, and they certainly can't afford a console. Oh wait, their parents bought them that stuff? Gee, I wonder what else fits in the xmas stocking ...

It's the addition of a monthly payment that you have to keep up with that's the problem. Every few months I usually have the money for a used $20 game, but sometimes I don't. If I had had a monthly bill for XBox Live, I might not be able to buy any more games, and I'ld have to worry about another bill every month I have to make sure gets paid. I think my situation is the kind of situation grandparent poster was talking about.

Blu-ray isn't "the" established standard. People aren't going to be purchasing them because they want both a next gen movie format + game box -- they don't know which format will come on top. This means that only people who are convinced that blu-ray will come out on top will consider this a good deal.

If PS3 has Blu-Ray, and XBox doesn't have HD-DVD, then Blu-Ray will become the established standard. Millions of people will buy the PS3 pretty much irregardless of what they do, which will give Blu-Ray a very good base to work with.

this was the problem with the PS2 ... half of my [admitedly small] PS1 library didn't work right on the PS2

I haven't heard of that problem. I have about 65 PS1 games, and I've never had any problems with the PS2 playing any of them. What games do you have problems with?

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Anonymous Coward]

"What games do you have problems with?"

He didn't.

It's called damage control/FUD.

Microsoft and its astroturfers are out to try to minimize the damage their inablity to support backwards compatibility and the lies they've made about it.

They call it "playing hardball" or something like that. To the rest of the world they are just a bunch of sleazebags.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Actually, at the time DVD was a new standard and it was competeing with Super VCD's. In asia VCD are still common. The PS2 was often bought as a cheap DVD player for a format that was new. In a very similiar way Blu-ray is.

I don't have any knowledge of "Super VCD's", nor how people perceived that format, so I can't counter your arguement. Given my lack of knowledge of the existance of that format, however, I would suggest that it probably wasn't well supported in the first place ...

The problem with online play is the same with PC's as they are with Live, the relative skill level of people are low, and people don't like to lose. MMORPG's do alright because skill isn't such a huge factor, but see how many people play Warcraft 3 in ladder compared to how many play in usemaps. It's about 20% of the players play ladder, the rest play use map settings. The appeal of online play is playing against people, the draw back is unless you've played online a bit everyone will be better then you. Most people would prefer to play offline. There just isn't any appeal to losing, and they dont' want to develope their skill. It's nto like cable. Cable (television or internet) doesn't require you to do anythign but pay. It will reach a saturation point of 10-20% of console gamers, and unless they come out with a full proof way of skill matching, it will peak there. even with good matching, many just don't see a need to go online.

It isn't that people don't like to lose. They just don't like to get the living crap beat out of them. They want a challenge, and a reasonable chance of winning against their opponent. In other words, they want to play a fun match, not one where they are merely a target.

This is actually where a well-designed online service comes into play, as you've noted, and if you'd seen much of what they've got planned for live on the xbox 360 you'd see how they are attempting to address this problem (it looks very interesting; we'll see how well they pull it off).

Hell, just look at what they did for matchmaking on Halo2. It is a sneak peak at how it should be done. Nearly every game I play is challenging and fun. I rarely lose, and I rarely win, but it is always a blast because the people I'm playing against are roughly at my skill level. Every now and then you'll get a game where someone kicks everyone elses' arse, and those aren't particularly enjoyable, which goes to prove my point above. But those are the exception rather than the rule, and those people quickly "advance" to a level where they are being matched against people near their skill level.

I don't find any of the arguements you've posed particularly convincing, as I feel that your arguements "dooming" online play are all solvable. I suspect you feel the exact opposite, so I doubt there is much more light we can shed on the topic.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

It's the addition of a monthly payment that you have to keep up with that's the problem. Every few months I usually have the money for a used $20 game, but sometimes I don't. If I had had a monthly bill for XBox Live, I might not be able to buy any more games, and I'ld have to worry about another bill every month I have to make sure gets paid. I think my situation is the kind of situation grandparent poster was talking about.

You don't have to pay a monthly bill. They offer a yearly subscription. They even sell these gift-card like thingies with a code on them at stores that can be used to pay for the subscription. Let it lapse, and Live just doesn't work any more ...

If PS3 has Blu-Ray, and XBox doesn't have HD-DVD, then Blu-Ray will become the established standard. Millions of people will buy the PS3 pretty much irregardless of what they do, which will give Blu-Ray a very good base to work with.

If Sony is the only company making Blu-ray drives, and the only company stamping out discs with movies, it won't be the established standard. The fact that Sony controls the IP is leading to a ton of resistance in the industry, as companies generally don't like giving money directly to their competition.

That's not to say that blu-ray doesn't have a chance; it will definately be interesting to see how it plays out. But it certainly isn't as simple as you seem to think it is.

I haven't heard of that problem. I have about 65 PS1 games, and I've never had any problems with the PS2 playing any of them. What games do you have problems with?

One of the Mortal Kombat games would crashes sometimes; can't remember which one it was. I want to say 3, but that doesn't sound right...

One of the Street Fighter games had a similar problem.

FF VII -- game crashes

Final Fantasy Anthology (when playing FFV) -- game would crash attempting to save sometimes.

Crono Cross -- game itself played fine, but the game was unable to read saves, and any attempt to save a game would fail, corrupting everything on the memory card (I was less than happy about that).

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[king-manic]

I don't have any knowledge of "Super VCD's", nor how people perceived that format, so I can't counter your arguement. Given my lack of knowledge of the existance of that format, however, I would suggest that it probably wasn't well supported in the first place ...

Actually, super VCD and VCD's in general are the prefered format of movies in asia still. DVD's are gaining a foothold but it took a while before the hardware came down in price so everyone can get it. The reason you don't have any info on that format is because it was not promoted as a format in north america but you will find it all over asia and europe. If you have nero, you will notice it has a VCD burning encoding format as well as super VCD. The format is actually very very common and well supported but the Consumer electronics companies in NA didn't think people wanted it.

In Japan a PS2 is the most common DVD player. Sony is positioning this for Japan first since the market there is more forgiving then here for technical problems.

I rarely lose, and I rarely win,
err... does that mean the majority of your games end in a draw?

I don't find any of the arguements you've posed particularly convincing, as I feel that your arguements "dooming" online play are all solvable. I suspect you feel the exact opposite, so I doubt there is much more light we can shed on the topic.

I loev online play, I was a competative warcraft 3 player. I was ranked #17 for 2v2 us west and east. However most of my friends who own a copy, all play use maps (defence games ect..). Their fairly representaive. Most people can't find any extra appeal for online play. It might help to let you know my demographic, Males 18-25. We work, we go to school, we have GF's and a social life. If we have time for games, it mostly offline and we don't crave online play very much, I wish it weren't so myself. Finding good friendly Warcraft 3 matches is hard since all my friends don't play (well, some do but just not against me). I still play bnet, but without the social aspect it's nto as fun.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

err... does that mean the majority of your games end in a draw?

No, it means that I ended up somewhere in the middle of the rankings.

If we have time for games, it mostly offline and we don't crave online play very much, I wish it weren't so myself. Finding good friendly Warcraft 3 matches is hard since all my friends don't play (well, some do but just not against me). I still play bnet, but without the social aspect it's nto as fun.

Again, all things that a good online service takes care of for you. You should spend no time "looking" for a good game -- a good online service ought to just give you one. A good line service also builds a social aspect into it, forming a community of players.

*shrug* As I said before, I think these are solvable problems.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[king-manic]

Again, all things that a good online service takes care of for you. You should spend no time "looking" for a good game -- a good online service ought to just give you one. A good line service also builds a social aspect into it, forming a community of players.

*shrug* As I said before, I think these are solvable problems.

Bnet is such a service. I have no problems getting games against players of similiar skill, but "MY FRIENDS" don't play online so I miss that social element. For online play the social interaction amounts to "check expo" "pwned b00b" ect... I don't have enough time for a "clan" and I dislike dealing with those 14 and 15 years olds who do. I have been petitioned a lot, I am ranked world wide.

IT's not the game matchs, some people just aren't good. They have difficulty finishing the 1p campeign so online play is so far beyond them they don't want to try. Even 3v1 my friends can't take me. So online is not for them.

These aren't solvable problems, the problems are the players not the service. They see no value in goign online. even one of the best FPS players I know, who loves Halo and works for Bioware, doesn't subscribe to live. He just doesn't see a point. IF he wants online, he plays a PC-FPS(Counter Strike), halo is for pwning his friends.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Bnet doesn't make any attempt to solve the social aspect. If bnet also throws people who can't finish the 1p campaign into a game with a top ranked person, their matchmaking system is broken as well. As I've said, these are solvable problems. Bnet, from what you describe, has not solved them -- hence your poor experience.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[king-manic]

Bnet doesn't make any attempt to solve the social aspect. If bnet also throws people who can't finish the 1p campaign into a game with a top ranked person, their matchmaking system is broken as well. As I've said, these are solvable problems. Bnet, from what you describe, has not solved them -- hence your poor experience.

what exactly doens't bnet do, it has a ranking system and it generally works. But the minimium skill level required is far high then most nubies have even for lvl 1 play. I play lvl 25-45 players, I beat a 47 once. Most my games are filled with 20+ players. It seems to work. still lvl 1 skill is still greater then my friends.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

They set the level 1 bar too high if someone who hasn't picked up the game before gets the living crap beat out of them by someone "stuck" at level 1.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[king-manic]

It also does match ups based on #wins and #losses. But the social aspect of having a lot of losses drove people to start over which messes up the rankings. If enough people don't mind losing 100 times, they'd be paired with people who also lost 100 times.

The lvl 47 player I played was very mediochre but he apparently played a lot. This meant his level was high but was correctly paired with me. Sometimes you see match ups liek that and thinkt he system is broken but it compares games played vs level vs win %. high win% + few games played means you will be paired with higher level guys. It's meant to have better players rise faster (my partner and I hit lvl 38 and #17 in only 50 games). Most people only look at level but is a lvl 47 with a 500/800 record all that good? You get xp for every win and lose a little, but the current system also rewards for playing a lot. Most of my accounts are 20+ in under 100 games. I get some tough match ups and that okay.

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[Keeper]

Yes, that would definately qualify as a very poor matchmaking system.

The best ones I've seen are based around an ELO ranking, where your rank increases/decreases relative to who you beat (base don their ranking) and how badly you beat them.

The matchmaking system selects people with a similar ELO ranking (there is an acceptable range) and throws them into a match together.

You can read about it here, if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system

Re:It's a little bit of everything

[king-manic]

Yes, that would definately qualify as a very poor matchmaking system.

The best ones I've seen are based around an ELO ranking, where your rank increases/decreases relative to who you beat (base don their ranking) and how badly you beat them.

The matchmaking system selects people with a similar ELO ranking (there is an acceptable range) and throws them into a match together.

You can read about it here, if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system

BNET is partially based on that. It takes into account lvl which is based on who you beat, and your win / lose % and games played. It is fairly accurate. The only severly lopesided games occur late at night when there are fewer available players, it had a preference of matching +- 6 levels for 1v1 or a team difference of +- X depending on if it's 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4. The next preference is win lose %, it will try to match you with someone with a similair %. The next match making set up is games played, it will try to match with people with equivilent # of games played.

It works for moderatly skilled players and up, It's been refined for 3 years and altered. The added features of the ranking system is used to combat "smurphing". Having a higher skilled player start over so he can play newbies. But comparing win % and games played it pit less newbies against these sharks.

History has Shown Otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

Being first can be advantageous, but it can also be a downfall. One need look no further then Sega to see the problems it had not only with the Dreamcast, but also the Genesis. Everyone knows the issues the Dreamcast had, but lets not forget how because the Genesis were first to market and technologically inferior to the SNES how it hurt them in the mid 90s. Even as early as 1994, the SNES was pumping out games like Final Fantasy 3, which, graphically, blew most Genesis games out of the water. In the next two years, developers would continue to push the limits of the SNES hardware, while the Genesis library received smaller and smaller additions.

The SNES got games like Donkey Kong Country, Yoshi's Island, and Chrono Trigger, while the Genesis was relegated to graphically inferior games like Comix Zone and Vectorman. Being first to market certainly helped Sega in the early 90s, but by the time the Genesis had reached its limits, the SNES was still pushing the envelope.

Re:History has Shown Otherwise

[Fred Or Alive]

I think post-1994 the Mega Drive / Genesis sufferred becuase Sega wanted to push the Saturn far more - in Japan the Megadrive was never that sucessful (note it's lack of Japanese developer support generally), and after the Saturn came out they put all their resources onto that, ignoring the fact that the Mega Drive / Genesis was still quite sucessful in the west. The lack of support from SoJ (both in games, and general management) probably didn't help with MD vs. SNES, as Nintendo were still focused on the SNES for a couple of years after.

Of course graphically, the SNES kicked the MD's ass (apart from the lower graphics resolution[1]), but the Mega Drive did hold it's own against the SNES for a good time. And Comix Zone is an interesting choice of example, I think it's a really interesting experiment in graphics style etc., a bit like Yoshi's Island. Of course it isn't that colourful, but it's still good looking. And Vectorman's animation blows Donkey Kong Country's out of the water. ;-)

[1] I think the SNES did have modes that were higher res than the Mega Drive, but for normal gameplay, the Megadrive usually used a higher (or at least equal) resolution to the SNES.

Re:History has Shown Otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what really did it for me wasn't the Genesis' graphics vs. the SNES, but the sound. Genesis' sound hardware was half a step above NES, with those horrible FM syntisis sounds. Sound and music in Genesis games was enough to make your ears bleed. The SNES was the first console to have really good sound hardware.

Microsoft's first mover advantage

[cahiha]

Microsoft's first mover advantage is balanced by Microsoft's "we can't put together a good first release to save our lives" disadvantage. I think Sony has little reason to be worried.

Re:Microsoft's first mover advantage

[Khuffie]

As if Sony can manage a good release? At least the Xbox had a killer app at launch, what did the PS2 have?

Re:Microsoft's first mover advantage

[MrCopilot]

"we can't put together a good first release to save our lives" disadvantage.

This is their second release.

Your skepticism is healthy, but wrong. MS wants to play, and they don't play to lose, unless they will win in the long run.

Re:Microsoft's first mover advantage

[Shadarr]

Sure, but when has MS ever put out a good product prior to version three? Windows, IE, Word.... Maybe that's why they're naming it 360.

Re:Microsoft's first mover advantage

[Keeper]

What makes you think that Direct X on Windows wasn't v1?

Re:Microsoft's first mover advantage

[MrCopilot]

Oh I don't know.

Xbox. Sure its just a PC but it just runs, any BSODs on yours?

Live

Notepad

AntiSpyware

DOS

Granted, none were revolutionary. But good products, I think they qualify.

I'm a Zealot, I know. A linux zealot, but sometimes bullshit is just bullshit.

BTW, RE: good product prior to version three

When have you? I haven't put out a good 1.0 in years. I mean Damn, I never even release 1.0s to the wild. Ah, but the 1.3 that ones sweet.

Re:Microsoft's first mover advantage

[Anonymous Coward]

It had that game where you shot off fireworks. What was it called? Anyway, if that isn't the epitome of a "killer app", I don't know what is.

Re:Microsoft's first mover advantage

[cahiha]

The Xbox 360 is, for practical purposes, a completely new product.

As for what Microsoft wants to do, it doesn't really matter. The company has had far more failures (some of them devastating) than successes.

Even their "successful" products (meaning, non-negligible market share) generally only survive because their Windows monopoly pulls them through. Or do you seriously believe, any significant number of people would pay money for IIS or Access or SQL Server or Windows Media servers/clients if it weren't for their integration into Windows?

The Main Factors

[CDarklock]

I see four major factors going into this question.

1. Is it compelling? Does it offer anything significant over what I've already got? The Dreamcast gave me a big "No" on that score.

2. Is it readily available? I *wanted* the PS2 at launch, but Sony didn't ship enough and I got knocked off the waiting list... so I waited well over a year to get one.

3. Is it worth the price? I didn't buy an XBox at launch, but I bought one when the price dropped below $200. I am impressed enough by the XBox to have the 360 reserved, however, and I fully intend to grab it on the day of release; the XBox is *easily* worth twice the price of a PS2 on construction value alone. (I've completely trashed three PS2 consoles. It says something that I bothered to replace them, though.)

4. What can I do with it? If the answer is "nothing" -- no games -- I'm not really interested. So backward compatibility is critical. The GameCube was the last console to enter my arsenal, because I didn't have an existing library it could use. The key factor there was a strong used game selection and a few killer games (e.g. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker).

That's what goes into my decisions. YMMV.

Re:The Main Factors

[normal_guy]

I gotta ask how you completely trashed three of these devices. They're not meant to be played in rain.

Re:The Main Factors

[Jerf]

Is it compelling? Does it offer anything significant over what I've already got? The Dreamcast gave me a big "No" on that score.

Wow. What exactly were you looking for? The Dreamcast had one of the best starting line ups in American history, and to call it a step up over the Playstation One is selling it extremely short. (PS1 -> DC was a much bigger step than DC -> PS2; I'd say about 3:1, though that's an inherently subjective number.)

Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure, Sega NFL 2K, and to a lesser degree House Of The Dead (although there was a lot of hype at the time) and Powerstone were all strong release games, and most of the rest were at least passable. The first one in particular still holds up pretty well, I think, and I still play it.

(Now, if your thing is RPGs, that statement does make sense. Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2 are both quite strong, but that's nearly the end of the list and neither are release games.)

There aren't many consoles with a better release line up, not counting reverse compatibility. (In which case the PS/2 and various GameBoy incarnations clean up, but that's not really the spirit here.)

Re:The Main Factors

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because he's lying so he can place emphasis on a point that falls apart without anecdotes and blatant untruths to hold it together.

Re:The Main Factors

[king-manic]

PS1 -> DC was a much bigger step than DC -> PS2; I'd say about 3:1, though that's an inherently subjective number.)

err... DC was the same "generation" as the PS2. IT's liek saying, NES-> Genesis was much bigger step then genesis -> SNES.

Re:The Main Factors

[Strokke]

"3. Is it worth the price? I didn't buy an XBox at launch, but I bought one when the price dropped below $200. I am impressed enough by the XBox to have the 360 reserved, however, and I fully intend to grab it on the day of release; the XBox is *easily* worth twice the price of a PS2 on construction value alone. (I've completely trashed three PS2 consoles. It says something that I bothered to replace them, though.) 4. What can I do with it? If the answer is "nothing" -- no games -- I'm not really interested. So backward compatibility is critical. The GameCube was the last console to enter my arsenal, because I didn't have an existing library it could use. The key factor there was a strong used game selection and a few killer games (e.g. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)."
First off your comment about construction value is utterly ridiculous. You've broken 3 PS2s? You do realize you're supposed to use controllers and not hammers to play the game. Second, although I believe backwards compatibility is just a nice convenience (I'm not spending 300 bucks on a PS2 so I can play PS1 games), only the ps2 had backwards compatibility. Therefore your reasoning on Gamecube being the last console to enter your "arsenal" (taking violence in video games to the next level), is completely false.

Re:The Main Factors

[CDarklock]

CD-ROM failures. Laser screwups, alignments, one complete motor burnout.

Yes, it's properly ventilated. I've had zero problems since getting the slimline version, as well.

Re:The Main Factors

[CDarklock]

I'm primarily an RPG fan, as you quite rightly deduce later in your post, and I'm not a big fan of network multiplayer. Don't get me wrong, the Dreamcast was a fantastic piece of hardware, it just wasn't what I personally wanted in a system. I still have a sort of wistful nostalgia about the DC, for some reason, and have been considering picking one up on the used market for no real purpose other than to say I have one.

Re:The Main Factors

[CDarklock]

I have four cats and a toddler. My consoles are frequently subjected to unexpected stresses, as the cats knock things off the entertainment center into the path of our little rampaging maniac who will do God only knows what with them.

With the PS2, I'm resigned to buying new controllers every few months. The XBox, on the other hand, has suffered some truly shocking moments -- and I haven't had to replace anything yet. So yes, construction value counts. Ridicule it as much as you like, I have a certain distaste for spending $40 on a new controller three to five times a year. I also have a problem with replacing consoles because the CD drive decided to quit for no good reason; the first two PS2s I lost were prior to the arrival of our little bundle of terror, and they sat calmly and quietly next to the TV until they decided to stop reading various discs. One of them was then misplaced by Sony's warranty fulfillment center. (Judging by what I've heard from other PS2 owners, this is an extremely rare occurrence, so I don't think it was in any way intentional.)

As far as backward compatibility goes, here's my decision matrix.

PS2: Compatible with predecessor, +1
XBox: No predecessor, 0
GC: Incompatible with predecessor, -1

Is that not a reasonable viewpoint?

Other factors were involved in choosing the XBox over the GameCube, of course, but it *was* the backward compatibility question that kept it from being seriously considered for so long.

It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[telstar]

If XBOX 360's implementation of Live can pull in enough users, and a few solid titles come along with it ... XBOX 360 should be a success. You see users will not only be invested in the system ... they'll want to remain connected to the friends they're connected to through Live. Since MS is planning on giving away basic Live on weekends for free, they should have a pretty solid connection to users, and I think their first-mover advantage WILL benefit them more than had they just released a game machine without any sort of community component.

Re:It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[amliebsch]

Actually, I believe that the basic Live functionality, which will include friends lists, video chatting, stats, profiles, updates, simple games, etc. will be free all the time. Only the Gold service, required for online play for title games, will be for-fee, and they have stated that they intend to have occasional free weekends of that service.

Re:It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[Godeke]

Yes, please... make the primary function the ability to be verbally abused while playing games and the primary upgrade the fact they will be able to flip me off in video as well.

Wow: Sign. Me. Up.

Re:It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[That's Unpossible!]

the primary upgrade the fact they will be able to flip me off in video as well.

Just a hunch, but I don't think people will be using the video for THAT. Although sometimes it may look like someone is holding up a finger, it's not a finger.

Re:It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[Ondo]

Yes, please... make the primary function the ability to be verbally abused while playing games and the primary upgrade the fact they will be able to flip me off in video as well.

Another upgrade is the ability to set your "gamerzone" to Family, which is supposed to have a kid-friendly environment.

Re:It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[Saige]

Well, two of the new features in the next iteration of Live will take care of this.

Item #1 is the creation of "zones". My understand is that the "family" zone will have a very low tolerance for verbal abuse - so the people who do that will soon find themselves unable to play in that zone.

Item #2 is the gamer ratings. You rate gamers you come up against, and the ones that consistently trash talk and abuse other people are going to watch their ratings go down. You should also be able to avoid those at the bottom of the ratings, and not have to play against them.

They've realized that this has been a bigger issue than they expected, so more resources are going to go to addressing this problem.

Re:It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[Suddenly_Dead]

How are "zones" going to be enforced? I mean, I thought current Xbox Live is supposed to prevent assholes, racists, cheaters, etc., yet I still see them everywhere. You can send negative feedback, you can email Microsoft, but there are still people like that [I]everywhere[/I]. (The lag is also prevelent in many games, but that's a bit besides the point.)

In any case, I'm canceling my XBL subscription for the second time now because of this crap, and I have no intention of renewing (I did it for Halo 2, but that really didn't meet expectations). I'd much rather play solo or multiplayer on the PC.

Re:It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[KDR_11k]

I wonder if making your video stream display an image of Tubgirl is a bannable offense?

Re:It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[Saige]

I don't know the details of that yet. But I suspect it will be something like locking people out of certain zones, for example, based on criterial. If you're swearing and cussing enough to get feedback, they may ban you from the "Family" zone very quickly, much more quickly than is done now.

And BTW, feedback on Live, even now, does have an effect. It does not disappear into some black hole or /dev/null or the such.

Re:It's not the XBOX that'll lock users, it's LIVE

[AlexMax2742]

I think that the downside of total assholes playing on Xbox Live was heavily outweighed by the upside of being almost guarenteed of your firends having a microphone when playing games. Makes teamwork MUCH easier and fun.

Video isn't as big of a step up, in my opinion, but the whole point is that hopefully you'll have a circle of friends that you'll be playing with that it will be useful for.

Will I be able to afford a PS3 anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I am pre-ordering one 360, and I may end up with another one if the first one is cool. I have three kids and a wife, and we all play games. Having a second console is worth its weight in gold for convenience and for multiplayer games. Anyway, if I pay $299 twice and buy a few games for $60, how likely is it that I will feel like paying $400+ for a PS3? I will eventually get one and a Revolution and a few DS and PSP handhelds, but not at launch.

Too lazy to create an account.....

AC

Re:Will I be able to afford a PS3 anyway?

[Fr05t]

2 x 360s, PS3, Revolution, and a few DS and PSPs?! I don't suppose you are looking to adopt a 4th child, say a 26 year old Canadian boy?

I'm already house broken and moderately clean!

Re:Will I be able to afford a PS3 anyway?

[Leiterfluid]

I've owned quite a few consoles in my day, and I've never bought one at launch. In fact, I will wait for the next generations of console to drop to under $150 before I even consider buying one.

The way I see it, let the folks who pay twice what I'm willing to pay deal with all the hassles and bugs, and then once the product is proven and cheap, then I'll go in.

It's not because I'm cheap, it's because the consoles don't have more than $150 in value to me. I can respect the above AC wanting to have multiple consoles for his family, but I have better things I can spend my money on.

Re:Will I be able to afford a PS3 anyway?

[focitrixilous P]

Bragging about your apparently limitless wealth and sucess, your wife that likes games, all of which you've earned being too lazy to make a free /. account?

Want to trade lives?

Re:Will I be able to afford a PS3 anyway?

[Patoski]

I've owned quite a few consoles in my day, and I've never bought one at launch. In fact, I will wait for the next generations of console to drop to under $150 before I even consider buying one.

Also, by the time the consoles hit that magic $150 price point there are plenty of cheap (but quality) pre-played games.

Completely off their mark

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

The number one factor in console sales is the games. It has nothing to do with brand loyalty, significant andvances in technology or quality and reliable hardware.

Its the games, games, games. XBOX is the most superior current generation console on the market, and it lagged behind an older PS2 simply because Microsoft did not secure enough exclusive titles for the XBOX. MOST titles are either PC ports, or were ported to PC (including Halo), or the titles could be found on other game consoles. The only reason why I didn't buy the XBOX is that having the PS2, I didn't find any titles on the XBOX I wanted that wasn't already offered on the PS2 platform. This is the only situation where being first had its benefits, when you start cross-platforming games.

For the XBOX360 to succeed, Microsoft needs to start creating some exclusive franchises that will ONLY be available on the XBOX360. This is why Nintendo is still surviving, because of their exclusive Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Pokemon, Kirby, Wario, etc, etc, etc titles. If Nintendo started whoring out every one of their characters to every platform, then they would have died long ago.

This also applies to the PS3, when it comes out second, if Sony does not secure enough exclusive titles, then the market share Microsoft built up with the XBOX 360 will affect sales of the PS3 if Sony just ports XBOX360 titles to their platform. But the XBOX360 market share will only gain momentum over the PS3 if there are enough good titles at launch to build up a large consumer base.

Games drive sales. I always say that if there are at least 4 to 5 titles available on a platform I realy want to play, I will buy that platform. But I won't rush out to buy the XBOX360 just because it is first, or it offers state-of-the-art technology. Buying a game console before having at least 2 games you want to play is kind of rediculous.

Re:Completely off their mark

[Anonymous Coward]

The contracts for the exclusive IP/titles have long been signed.

The console devs and publishers have lined up all their major IP behind Sony. Nothing will change that at this point.

The war is over. Sony won, a long time ago.

Re:Completely off their mark

[Anonymous Coward]

XBOX is the most superior current generation console on the market

ITYM "bestest".

Re:Completely off their mark

[Anonymous Coward]

The Xbox is a piece of shit.

It is a nasty brute force piece of hardware that could only be created by a company with no console hardware experience. Only a foaming at the mouth x86/Microsoft fanboy look at with anything but contempt.

The PS2 is an amazing piece of hardware that we are seeing taken to its logical extension in the PS3/Cell.

The GameCube is an elegant, powerful, and minimal design. Metroid 2 put Halo 2 to shame graphically. Look for yourself if you are a "xbox is teh most powerful" type of person.

The PS2 utterly destroys the Xbox in multiple performance areas.

The GameCube utterly destroys the Xbox in multiple performance areas.

Both the PS2 and GameCube's manufacturing tech behind them have enabled both of them to rapidly move to reduction in manufacturig costs.

The Xbox was once described as the equivalent of a humongous sign visible from Japan on the Pacific coast that says "We Suck"

Backwards compatability

[tm2b]

Backwards compatbility is also a huge factor.

People could buy a PS2 risk-free, knowing that they could continue to play all of their old PS1 games and also play the new ones. It was an upgrade instead of a platform change, and people didn't have to choose between running two consoles and not being able to play their old games any longer.

That's important. It remains to be seen just how good XBox 360's half-assed backwards compatability is - if I can't play ToeJam & Earl III on it, it'll be quite a while before I get one.

Re:Backwards compatability

[Anonymous Coward]

bought a ps2 this gen near launch for rpgs and backwards compatability. stuck with it through this generation for rpgs and "quirky" games (Rez, Ico, Katamari,...)

movie conversions, "realistic" combat games, and the dozens of "urban"-style games don't tempt me at all.

i've been eyeing the gamecube this gen, but there are only a handful of games there that really tempt me...

next gen i'm most curious about (so far)... the revolution. the mainstreaming and better-graphicking of games isn't a major motivation for me, but if i can get a new console, play a half dozen old/cheap games from the gamecube and have some new interesting game experiences - that'd be a great value for me.

never owned a nintendo console in my life (though i spent my share of time playing the old-school ones in various friends basements back in the day)

also: i'm figuring single-player rpgs are about due for a renaissance... whichever console can get some really interesting virtual worlds for me to explore without having pop-up random encounters and the other tired gameplay cliches of this genre is going to get my cash.

Re:Backwards compatability

[Anonymous Coward]

thats what the original xbox is for....

atari

[Reignking]

Atari had first-mover advantage on other systems (Intellivision, Coleco), which was huge for them. I felt like an outcast for having Intellivision...

ATARI is the only "First Mover" in consoles.

[popo]

Console development is cyclical. To claim any release in the cycle has "First Mover Advantage" is to start the 'calendar' at a point convenient to your argument.

The only "First Mover" in the console business is Atari.

That's it. Everyone else is coming out with successive and improved products. The question "Does Microsoft have First Mover Advantage?" belies a lack of understanding for what "First Mover Advantage" is.

Furthermore, there is nothing revolutionary or "First" at all about the Xbox. It doesn't have the fastest processor, GPU, bus or best resolution. It is Microsoft's latest product, in a long line of competing products. It isn't particularly special in any way.

And not to be partisan on the issue, but at least the PS3 is introducing a radical new CPU design into the equation.

Re:ATARI is the only "First Mover" in consoles.

[dogbowl]

Might want to move your calendar back a few years.

1972 Odyssey
1972-1977 Various dedicated consoles
1976 Fairchild Channel F Released
1977 Atari VCS Released
1977 Bally Professional Arcade
1978 Odyssey 2

Re:ATARI is the only "First Mover" in consoles.

[Anonymous Coward]

radical... yes, but we have no idea how its going to actually perform. It's not even fully developed yet and if you throw anandtechs speculations into this it won't be all that great anyway.

/. and gama sitting in a tree

[shoptroll]

/. really is turning into the new Gama redirect...

Can't we just get a sidebar ala Blue's News for this stuff?

Microsoft will regain their market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft will probably regain their market share and do little more than that. The biggest problem the XBox had was that it's games were too focused on a small portion of the gaming market; the teenage or young adult male hard-core gamer population. When you look at games for the 360 you see little improvement in the variety of games available (mostly FPS, Racing games and sports games). What this means in that Sony will probably continue to have the largest market share because they have the most diverse line-up, Nintendo will have the most dedicated fan base because they have the most unique line-up, and Microsoft will have the geekest fanbase because they are too focused on a market.

Being out first will have next to no impact on their market share. The only instance I can think of where not being out earlier really hurt a company was Nintendo with the N64, if it was released a year earlier the N64 would have probably had almost double the userbase and developers would have been virtually forced to support it.

Re:Microsoft will regain their market share

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest problem the XBox had was that it's games were too focused on a small portion of the gaming market; the teenage or young adult male hard-core gamer population.

What else is there?

When you look at games for the 360 you see little improvement in the variety of games available (mostly FPS, Racing games and sports games). What this means in that Sony will probably continue to have the largest market share because they have the most diverse line-up

As opposed to what? One of PS2's redundant anime/ninja/samurai games? Or something childish like Mario Karts? FPS, racing and sports games are not the bulk of video game sales?

Re:Microsoft will regain their market share

[Anonymous Coward]

They may be the 'bulk of video game sales' in North America BUT every (EVERY) platform has games in these genres.

Think of it this way, if there was 2 DVD formats one of which would have only big budget (small thinking) movies on it like Starwars Episode 3, and another that would have all the big budget blockbusters and also have drama, comedy, horror, etc. on it which would you buy? (Add to the mix a third platform which will have many of the important blockbusters, many of the important other genres, and unique and special movies that can be found no where else)

Re:Microsoft will regain their market share

[cornface]

What else is there?

Children. Adults with jobs, families, and lives.

As opposed to what? One of PS2's redundant anime/ninja/samurai games? Or something childish like Mario Karts? FPS, racing and sports games are not the bulk of video game sales?

It's hard to imagine children enjoying a childish game, I know.

But what does Nintendo know?

Whoops!

Yes.

[superultra]

Coming out first was not what killed the Dreamcast. Sega did not have the "The EA Advantage"(TM), "The SquareSoft Advantage"(TM), or the "We Have Cash Coming Out of The Pores on Our Ass Advantage"(TM). Microsoft has like 2 of those 3, which makes this NOT LIKE THE PAST.

I hate how anachronistic we are.

Re:Yes.

[Elranzer]

The Squaresoft Advantage (TM) does not matter (or exist) these days anymore.

Re:Yes.

[aetherion]

Actually, MS has all three. SquareEnix committed to putting out games for the 360. But I agree that's not really an advantage any more.

A Long Time Cosole Game Engineer's Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been making console games for a long,long time. I've been through the ramp up, release, and milk the market with sequels phase of the console market many times over the years.

I really can't believe that articles like this are still written. Or that the topic seems to never go away.

Launch 'strategies' are irrelevant.

Debating launch times is useless. You can save your fingers typing out a response. It's been written before. Many,many times before.

1) Company X should release early and get 'head start' on building marketshare before company Y

2) Company X should hold off and make company Y show their hand

I've read those responses and their variations a few thousand times over the years. And they made no difference or provided any insight into the true nature of companies and consoles in question.

Compared to the much smaller, and it looks like shrinking, home computer game market, the console market is big business. With the big console developer and publishing houses approaching movie studio scale in sales. Although I hate the comparision, it is true in an absolute sense. I would not be surprise to see the console market get close to 20 billion in worldwide sales during the life of the PS3.

With these big studios and the big budgets for projects that are set in motion long before most people have even seen the early leaked specs or screenshots of the hardware, you are making major decisions that will impact your company for the next five years on a limited set of facts.

You have to ask yourself, who do I feel confident in to marry myself to for the next five years. Right now there realy is only one choice and that is Sony. No matter what you feel about Sony as a company, their products, the PSP, or their consoles THEY HAVE THEIR SHIT TOGETHER.

Nintendo has their shit together, but in a much more self centered, we don't need anyone to prosper way. I can safely ignore them and let them go right ahead with their plans. There are always going to be there if I decide I want to port some of my Sony titles to their latest. They are fine with that, and they are fine if we don't.

Microsoft is a disaster. They are so much of a disaster I don't think I can even wrap my brain about what exactly is wrong with these guys. All I can say is there is a reason Microsoft has failed to sign up any significant new IP or stolen any major franchises from Sony.

There is very little that will change the outcome of the marketplace winner for the next consoles. When any particular console launches is not irrelevant, but all it really does is shift the target installed base numbers for a particular console around in time.

You can think of a console's installed base as a sum of its exclusive titles/IP. There are a finite number of consumers that are going to buy a particular console with a given set of IP. Ignoring for the sake of simplicity that consumers buy a console for more than one system selling title very often.

Shifting a console's release date forward just gets those finite number of target consumers to buy your console earlier. There is no such thing as a 'head start'

With the current allocation of IPs/titles for Sony,Nintendo, and Microsoft you can predict the marketshare ceilings for the next consoles since the IPs each console maker has have remained almost exactly the same from the last generation.

Someone who didn't buy title A last generation or buy a system to play title A last generation is most likely not going to buy a new version of title A in the new generation of consoles. Exceptions yes, but in general true. Moving a console's release forward has no effect on the long term installed base. Consumers buy consoles to play specific games.

Launch strategy discussion should just go away. Look at the exclusive IPs to see which way the console market is heading. It is clear right now that it is heading, strongly, in Sony's direction.

Re:A Long Time Cosole Game Engineer's Thoughts

[Krater76]

Thanks for explaining it from a development side. I am not planning on buying any of the next gen consoles but I definitely felt that the A-list titles for the 360 were lacking. I wasn't hearing anything spectacular being available at launch so I wasn't getting excited about console.

It's all about the games - not the media options or the physical design. XBox has Halo and... ? Then they try to woo console buyers away from Sony with Perfect Dark? Yeah, good job on 'stealing' a dead N64 franchise.

And, don't get me wrong, I really don't care who wins, I just want a console with some great games, great graphics, and that is cheap enough that it doesn't hurt.

Re:A Long Time Cosole Game Engineer's Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

There are only 6.5 billion people in the world. Even if everyone in the world owns 1 of each console that's still 2 billion less than your estimate...

Re:A Long Time Cosole Game Engineer's Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

dollars.

Re:A Long Time Cosole Game Engineer's Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

20. Billion. DOLLARS. Sheeeeesh.

First Mover?

[KriKit]

Is that like First Post? Heh, kids these days... Coffeegate, First Mover, hehe.

MS will Kick Sony's Ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony is going to come out a year later and at $399, is it even going to be a contest??

As long as MS wins North America and Europe, they've won next gen. It's as simple as that.

We'll be seeing much more of Xbox 360's true potential at three events - first GC in EU, then TGS in Japan, then finally X05 in EU again.

Huh? Who comes up with this?

[Bastian]

Nintendo was not the first mover on 16-bit. Sega was.

Sony was not the first mover on CD-ROMs for games. Sega was. 3DO was second. (CDI doesn't count.)

Sony wasn't the first into 32-bit, either. Sega was.

Neither was Sony or Microsoft first into the current generation - Sega came before them again.

Hell, I'm stretching here, but I should point out that Sega was first into console RPGs and had the first true real-time strategy game, and I bet a large number of the audience couldn't even guess what those games are. (Phantasy Star and Dune II if you're curious.)

As far as I can tell, there is no first-mover advantage. All the anecdote I can think of makes it pretty clear to me that, overall, being the first into a market is just plain stupid. You have bear the burden creating the market for said generation, and once that's done you have to deal with the reality that your system is way behind anyone else's because you were working with earlier and therefore poorer technology, and all the systems that come out a year after you are eventually going to leave you in their tracks.

Maybe it existed back in the 70s and 80s when the home console market was absolutely nothing like it is today, but nowadays it's just an urban legend for market pundits.

Re:Huh? Who comes up with this?

[cornface]

Phantasty Star I is one of my favorite RPGs. I still play it every now and then. There is a GBA port out now, which is cool. I was really excited when the second one was released, but the change to overhead dungeons, way too frequent random monster encounters, and the bundled walkthrough ruined it for me.

Why did they drop the first person dungeons? Anypne know?

Re:Huh? Who comes up with this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being first to market, ignorning that such a thing doesn't really exist, is a lot like in movies where you see someone about to get wasted by some zombie/montser/alien run out of bullets and throw their gun at the thing.

Or like the start of Hitchhikers Guide where the bartender asks Ford if he should put a bag over his. Will it help? No. The Earth is still going to be destroyed.

Microsoft is in a similar situation. They are about to be blown away in the market by Sony again and they need to do SOMETHING, launch early, put a bag over their heads, throw their empty gun.

In the end it doesn't change the outcome.

Re:Huh? Who comes up with this?

[Bastian]

Probably because they got insanely difficult and kind of frustrating, what with the all-walls-identical and too many pit traps. I love Phantasy Star, and I thought the first-person dungeons were a great idea, but they did get kind of old toward the end of the game.

That said, I think the solution would have been to add some landmarks, wall texture, etc. rather than just dumping them entirely.

Re:Huh? Who comes up with this?

[drewmca]

The first RTS game on Sega was Herzog Zwei, not Dune II, wasn't it?

Re:Huh? Who comes up with this?

[cornface]

I mapped them out on graph paper. It took me ~3 months to beat the first time through (I was 10 or 11). The last dungeon was extremely hard. I called 1-800-USA-SEGA when it was still a free tip line. They ended up sending me a xeroxed map drawn on graph paper but by the time it got through the mail I beat the game. Ah, the free tip line. Good times!

Re:Huh? Who comes up with this?

[zr-rifle]

>I should point out that Sega was first into console RPGs and had the first true real-time strategy game, and I bet a large number of the audience couldn't even guess what those games are. (Phantasy Star and Dune II if you're curious.)

You're right there, except that the first real time strategy game was Herzog Zwei, released for the Genesis in 1988. Phantasy Star was an JRPG, and a great one too for that matter.

Re:Huh? Who comes up with this?

[Bastian]

Herzong Zwei was definitely in the line of RTS games, but Dune II was the first game to incorporate all the elements that people tend to expect in the RTS genre nowadays.

RE:(Now, if your thing is RPGs...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd doubt it considering he was amazed by the original xbox, and has preordered a 360 already, any console RPG'er I've ever come across were all extremely dissapointed with the xbox, and will not get a 360(although those mistwalker games sound nice 2 games isn't enough to spend so much money), and don't even mention all those PC style RPG's, they a the same genre in name only. Then again I think it's safe to assume that the GP was one of MS' astroturfer corps, aswell as many other posts in this story.

My rather boring thoughts...

[jellyerole]

I think it is quite evident that the first mover does not always recieve a necessary advantage in the market. In theory, when all systems are essentially equal, the first mover would logically have a considerable advantage. However, in reality, a lot of factors come into play other than the order of launch--including the actual differences between the consoles, the companies' marketing strategies, consumer biases, and others.

Yes, where were you?

[AvantLegion]

Not much of a gamer, are ya?

The Dreamcast had the best/most successful console launch ever at that point in time. It was a smashing early hit. What killed it later was the lack of support from certain major publishers. This is not a problem with Microsoft, they already have those publishers on board.

Correction for the article

[AvantLegion]

What the article SHOULD say is that coming out first fails if you're Sega

Or, perhaps, it should say that the key to a winning console is to have Sega release a system right before you.

Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast are the wind beneath SNES, PSX, and PS2's wings.

Re:Correction for the article

[Jonny_eh]

I guess they figured coming out 2nd didn't work for the Sega Master, since it came out about a year after the NES, and it bombed worse than the 3 latter systems (Genesis was succesful though!)

Why are we still talking about this?

[DeltaSigma]

A console's success is directly tied to its titles. The faster you can get more titles from bigger publishers the more successful you will be. Microsoft's early debut will help simply because they'll be given more time to acquire a greater game library (quantity and quality-wise) than Sony will have at their launch. Microsoft and Sony both have a critical mass of game developers. However, Sony does still have the most licensees.

Microsoft knows this, that's why they're attempting to release so early. Getting out early is going to put both systems with nearly an equivalent number of quality[1] titles three months after the PS3s launch (which is about the only time we could really start forcasting how this generation's console wars will go). The only way this won't end up with them on a fairly even playing field is if either of them (or their licensed developers) screws up royally.

Understanding these facts, one can clearly determine that the beginning of the war will be fairly even. Playstation still has a slightly greater number of hard-hitters licensed but Microsoft is closing that gap as fast as they can.

Even though I will never own an X-Box (OMG TEH M$ IZ TEH SUK! SONEH 4 TEH WIN1), I think Microsoft is going to pull ahead thanks to the developers they've just bought outright. Microsoft's acquiring a nice line-up of in-house developers, while Playstation seems to have forgotten that it was largely their in-house developments like Warhawk, Twisted Metal, etc. that got them ruling during the Playstation era.

To summarize: It is to Microsoft's advantage to be the first-mover. It does not give Microsoft the advantage.

[1] - For those that can't guess, I'm not trying to define quality titles in any artistic sense. By "quality" titles I mean games that sell well due to consumer satisfaction not simply hype. I personally find most of these "quality" titles to be average in execution and enjoyability, but my personal tastes don't define the gaming market. To summarize this footnote: Please don't try to argue with me about what makes a quality title. Chances are, I already agree with you.

Re:Why are we still talking about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, thanks for the x86 fanboy fantasyland perspective.

Next.

Re:Why are we still talking about this?

[DeltaSigma]

What? x86? Fantasyland?

There's nothing fantastic, or pro-computer, about that post. I'm sick of people saying this/that is going to have some serious impact on the next generation of consoles. If any one of the next big consoles didn't have wireless controllers, you'd hear people claiming that one was going to fade into obscurity in two years.

It's simply not the case. It doesn't matter what features you add or subtract from a console, what matters is attracting game developers. If you get the game developers, you get the games. Get the games and you have the gamers. It's the difference in a consoles success for its lifespan. Nintendo64 died because game developers were put off by cartridge production costs, and limited space. Gamecube still lives because they cater to, and still have enough, big developers to keep them going. The Dreamcast lost its licensees and we see where that put Sega.

There's nothing fan-boyish or fantastic about these simple facts. Gamers go where the games are. They always have, they always will. No early release, or technical gee-whiz add-on is going to change that.

It's frustrating to see these, supposed, professional gaming news sources always talking to gamers about how this technical merit, or this release schedule will affect their spending. It's bullshit. If IGN, /., PCGaming, or really anybody had the sense to ask what game studios thought about the consoles and where they were investing their development dollars they would have their answer for which console will succeed.

Re:Why are we still talking about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not too sure about this. Microsoft was able to aquire several third party titles for the XBox by throwing a lot of money around; which is something that, at least been rumored to, has stoped. Now with the cost of Development sky-rocketing large publishers are going to try to deliver their games to the largest market possible, and this means that third party exclusive games will mostly disapear; I suspect that a majority of Japaneese Publishers will favor the PS3 and Revolution whereas the North American and European developers will be more evenly spread (with the Revolution having a slight disadvantage). What this means is that the PS3 will have all of the important third party titles on it.

What this means is that first and second party exclusive titles will be where the 'game' is won this round; this obviously favors Nintendo being the Largest publisher in Japan (second largest in the world) and having a dedicated fanbase, but Sony comes out way ahead of Microsoft still because they have dramatically improved their in-house development since the Playstation days. As an example here are the million selling games in the US on the PS2 that were published by Sony:

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals
ATV Offroad Fury
Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
SOCOM II: U.S. Navy Seals
ATV Offroad Fury 2
Jak II
Ratchet & Clank

Whereas Microsoft only had:

Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo 2
Project Gotham Racing

Finally, one thing that may shift the ballance is Nintendo's hypothetically 'revolutionary' control concept; knowing Nintendo it will still be able to play conventional games (in some fashion) but should allow for 'advanced' controls. Now being how close they're to companies like Capcom currently it is possible that certain third party games could end up being initially designed on the Revolution that could then be very difficult to port; this would mean that Nintendo could (hypothetically) gain some third party exclusive games by default, in general though third party exclusives are mostly a thing of the past.