Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Sides With Nintendo Against Sony
rafemonkey writes "Looks like Microsoft loves the Wii. The Washington Post has an article in which VP Peter Moore says that since the PS3 is so expensive, gamers might as well get an Xbox 360 and a Wii for the cost of one Sony console." From the article: "Microsoft predicted on Tuesday it will have 10 million Xbox 360 consoles in the market before Sony launches the PS3. The high-end Xbox 360 sells for $399, but it does not include a built-in high-definition DVD video player that comes with Sony's PS3. Sony plans to sell a premium PS3 model for $599 when it debuts in North America on November 17, and Nintendo has not yet disclosed pricing for Wii." On that last note there is much speculation that Nintendo is aiming for a $249 price point. Sony's Kaz Hirai has in turn responded that the PlayStation 3 is priced for consumers, who are getting a lot for their money.
It looks like I'll be playing my Nintendo into the Wii hours of the night.
Uh, not yet.
<grrr
Still, it's not a financial or software alliance, it's really just talk. Otherwise I'd be worried about Nintendo.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
"Wii support Nintendo"
/apologies
http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/2006/05/09/
I'll foist over few extra bucks to avoid this in the future.
Sounds like they are trying to generate more positive press for the 360 by riding Nintendos coattails from the Revolution presentation.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
I dont know about the rest of you, but Nintendo really made it easy to choose which next gen to invest in.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
dare I say it? the man is right. The games which come out for the 360 will be pretty much the same as those for the PS3, they have been for the xbox and ps2. There are very few unique games between those two consoles. The Wii will sport unique games from the other two so for me it's a must, also the 360 and PS3 will have similar styles of play, the Wii will be different. If you were to want both styles then it is only logical to get the Wii and 360 for the price of a PS3.
Personally I can only afford one - and because I live in the UK I'll be paying twice what you are anyway *shakes fist* - so for me it'll be the Wii
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
"Hirai said different versions of gaming machines will likely be the norm from here on out, likening it to buying a computer today, where buyers can select from different configuration options to what best suits them."
There's a reason I play games on consoles nowadays. Consoles are simple. I really don't want to start having to study the game box to see if my console will play game X for that console.
Microsoft, first give me the Halo series on the Wii (complete with Wiimote control scheme) and then I'll start taking you seriously.
This guy's the limit!
The $249 prices seems a little fishy to me. The NES retailed for $199, as did SNES, as did N64, as did GameCube. I am seeing a pattern here.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
remember...Sony is the one who released rootkits on CD.
The only rootkit Microsoft has ever released is Windows.
Nintendo hasn't really been a threat to either company for many years. It makes perfect sense that microsoft would rather split your money with nintendo than have you buy a playstation. It's also not unreasonable to say that a parent (unless the kid is spoiled to hell) will not buy their child a playstation 3, Xbox 360 AND Nintendo. Unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised if this logical assumption was completely untrue at this point. I am also compelled to add that no game could match Double Dragon and Ninja Gaiden for NES.
Of course Microsoft is going to endorse Nintendo over Sony, because the Wii is not as much of a direct competitor to the 360 as the PS3 will be. So MS pushes a "360 for the bling, Wii for the party games" solution.
Maybe this is one of Microsofts attempt to flirt with Nintendo to make them more acceptable for Assimilation?
Microsoft's thinking is that every swing of the club/bat/racket Wii remote will send a cooling breeze of air over the Xbox 360, ensuring a longer lifespan for it. Of course this logic is flawed because users of the Wii remote will get so infuriated with the voodoo, not quite in sync gameplay of Wii games that they'll throw the Wii remote and nunchaka with great force, likely hitting the Xbox 360 in the process.
--- What?
If you really think about it, the xBox360 and the Wii are more complementary than they are competitive. The 360 will of course sate anybody's need for HD gaming (and, when the time comes, HD-DVD as well with the add-on) and (though I'm personally not a fan) Halo 3. The Wii will offer gameplay experiences not available elsewhere.
All for roughly the price of a system with a three-generation old controller (but crappier - no rumble support and unresponsive 3D movement) that will offer no visual improvement over the 360. Unless Blu-Ray really IS all it's cracked up to be, I really don't see the advantage of buying the PS3 over the competition.
Microsoft has said this before. When Nintendo first showed off the controller, MS called it "innovative" (the same buzzword they used when they were trying to protect themselves from the Justice Department, e.g. "freedom to innovate"). In every interview I've ever read since then, the interviewers hit hard with Sony/Microsoft questions then always toss in "So what do you think of Nintendo?" You always get "Revolution/Wii's innovative" and "I can't wait to play X Mario, Y Zelda, etc."
:P ). I'm sure if Nintendo hung up the towel they would have no problem letting them develop on Xbox 460 and a Halftwist, but I don't think they're serious about buying them out or forming a partnership.
Does this mean a deathknell for Nintendo? Not at all. At their core, Moore, Allard, etc. are gamers. They're MS businessmen, but they're gamers. They know what good games look like and try to court the best talent (well, except Rare...
Sony's Kaz Hirai has in turn responded that the PlayStation 3 is priced for consumers, who are getting a lot less for their money.
There, fixed that for ya.
if microsoft wasn't scared of the ps3 they would stand on their own two feet and say, screw the wii, screw the ps3, we're gonna win all by ourselves.
but now they're saying oh crap we need a buddy cuz the ps3 scares the pants off us.
microsoft complaining about the ps3 price is dumb, the xbox360 premium's market price was $800-1000 on ebay for the first 5 months. if tons of people are willing to pay that much for an xbox360, (which does not have a 60gig hdd, hi-def DVD drive, integrated wi-fi) then people will easily pay $600 for a ps3 that has a 60gig hdd and a BluRay DVD drive and integrated wi-fi.
Skip the 360 and get the Wii! You'll not only save money, but also the time involved in shopping until you actually find a 360 for sale (and none of that "Core" crap either).
My sig is too lon
"We felt that if you want to save something on your Memory Stick, most people have those readers on their PC, which is easily adaptable to the PlayStation 3 with a USB cord," said Hirai. "The only difference is HDMI - and at this point, I don't think many people's TV's have that. The ultimate result, to my eyes anyway, is there's not a discernable difference between what you get between HDMI and other forms of high definition."
This seems utterly bizarre. Over the course of the PS3's development, Sony has promised quite a bit, and yes they did include most of what they said (Cell, Blu Ray), but one of the biggest bits of HD. And now the president says there aren't enough TV's to warrant putting HDMI on the low end PS3?
Wasn't Nintendo getting flak for just this for the entire time that they said that HD wasn't yet the norm? Granted... Nintendo's max resolution still pales to the PS3's max resolution even without the HDMI.. but BluRay movies with the DRM bit set won't even work at max resolution on the low end PS3. Perhaps this was the point of the delay over the DRM announced previously.
After seeing things like the recent real-time trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4, Sony could ask for my left nut and $600, and I'd still go for it.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
"We felt that if you want to save something on your Memory Stick, most people have those readers on their PC, which is easily adaptable to the PlayStation 3 with a USB cord," said Hirai.
So, if I am reading this right, Sony wants me to park my computer next to my console. Like I don't have enough under the TV as it stands right now.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
What, does the Opera browser coming with the Wii's search bar now default to MSN?
How about giving away the console with the purchase of the first game -- "Buy a Wii get one Free"
If Nintendo sells a base unit for $59, they can lose just as much as Microsoft does, for each one sold!
This little PC goes to market, this little PS3 gets none, and this little one goes "Wii wii wii" all the way home.
I really cant help myself on this one: I dont want Microsoft extending their monopoly to the living room, I hate Sony for the way they treat their customers and just seem to copy innovation the way Microsoft does, and I'm really getting sick of Mario Kart, Metroid, Zelda, Super Smash Brothers, Pokémon, ....
Nintendo does a lot of innovation in the hardware sector, which I _really_ enjoy, but the software side of things just seems to do the same stuff over and over again. If you look at Mario Kart especially: the gameplay has hardly changed a bit since its first incarnation. Also, when it comes to Nintendo being the poor underdog, just look at what they did with Sega by forcing developers to release their games on the NES/SNES only.
Bottom line seems to be that I really dont want any of this companies to gain market dominance. I want them to constantly challenge each other.
Of course this is good for Microsoft - they can sell even more Xbox 360's and lose money faster! I think they're going for some kind of record, or looking for a really good tax write off strategy.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The man has a point! Am I in the right dimension, am I siding with a Microsoft rep?? I may have to get a 360 now with my Wii...
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
They can't just make the Blu-Ray optionion because in addition to being able to play movies it is also there to allow game manufacters to put more game data on a single disk. I have games for the current Xbox and PS2 that span more then one DVD. Now with HD quality graphics, the extra storage space on Blu-Ray is going to be used with the PS3. Blu-Ray is there for more then just movies.
The PS3 will cost $599 WITH a Blu-Ray drive.
XBox 360 costs $399, how much will will you pay if you want to add on the HD-DVD drive? I would think it would cost at least $200 dollars.
$399 + $200 = $599!!
Wow, look at all the Wii games Nintendo presented, can't wait to play Mario, Smash Bro's, Zelda, Warioware, and Metroid... AGAIN. Wii needs more 3rd party support.
It goes moo.
That IS my cow!
... So I can say I am playing with my Wii Wii...
Competition...
brings a tear to me eye...
*sniff*
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Could part of the reason be that Microsoft is backing HD DVD while Sony is backing Blu-ray?
The indiferrent party to my enemy is my friend.
Microsoft's decision to speak out publicly against Sony and in favor of Nintendo has to do with only one thing: HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray. I mean, you are essentially getting your moneys worth when buying a PS3, considering the price of a standalone next-gen DVD player. Just look at the amount of money Sony will be losing per console--and keep in mind, this is money lost at wholesale value. The customer is getting a $900 value at Sony's $400 expense, according to estimates claiming that the cost to produce the PS3 sits somewhere around $900. While this isn't uncommon for a company to lose money on each console sold, Sony has more to lose than anyone else. If Blu-Ray does not become the defacto standard of next-gen DVD, Sony will be facing a huge loss creating what will be considered just another proprietary format used primarily in Sony's hardware.
Similes are like metaphors
I not so sure about that. My guess is that we won't see a marginal difference between the 360 and ps3 graphics until a few years down the road. And what percentage of this outrageously high price comes from sony's insistance of putting a blue ray drive into that thing? A game on a blue ray media will be better because of what again?
I think this is probably true for hardcore gamers, especially since a lot of third-party content will be near identical for the PS3 and 360 (EA has admitted as much at E3). His plan is my own, and I was holding out on buying a 360 until Sony dropped their price bomb.
But I don't think for a minute that Microsoft will be able to ride Nintendo's coattails into sales to non-gamers. Too many of the games for the other two consoles are sequels of long-running franchises or games with overly-complex controls. At best they can hope for a halo effect (pardon the pun), where gamers playing games for the first time on the Wii might want to see what the fuss is about elsewhere.
And so, Microsoft's console market take-over strategy has begun. For years, I have been telling people that Microsoft is not entering the console market to give consumers "choice". Surprisingly, even a large portion of Slashdot readers have purchased the Xbox, despite turning around to bash Microsoft on Slashdot.
Absolutely no company is willing to take such massive losses in hopes to enter a competitive market. The return in a competitive market is simply very small compared to the losses incurred by Microsoft's brute-force entry into the market. Microsoft is entering the console market to create another monopoly.
Microsoft's plan of action is to take out Sony. Once Sony is out of the picture, Microsoft will slowly tie users to various Microsoft services and begin to use more leverage from their existing monopolies.
Once the users cannot switch, Nintendo have little chance of winning. Microsoft will then stop funding R&D to make up for all that lost capital. Stifling innovation at the cost of consumers.
This "alliance" is their first-step to their eventual domination of the console market. As consumers, it would be in our best interest NOT to support Microsoft in their endeavors.
"My wallet just cried," wrote one gamer, who calls himself 'DingoStoleMyBaby' on Shacknews.com.
Never thought I'd ever see the word "DingoStoleMyBaby" on CNN. You would think of all the sources available to them, they could pull a better "Damn this console is too high" quote from somewhere else.
Nintendo's console doesn't have sequels into the double digits.
Uh, I guess the Washington Post can't even count. The stripped down 360 costs $399, the higher-end costs $499 and that's without the HD-DVD. Plus, Sony's online play is free, and MS charges $50 a year for theirs. In fact, the 360's real "high-end" bundle costs $599, remember? All Sony has to do is throw in a couple games and they'd have MS beat already.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
This all boils back down to blu-ray, and the response from E3 maybe sony's first really good test of how receptive thier customers will be to the product. Basically for Sony Blu-ray added one year and 200$ to thier console. They probably should have done a little bit better market research if they were expecting better product reception. Sony intermixed too seperate markets of thier company hoping to leverage the success in one to bolster the other. It's too early to call but it certianly very clear now how risky this is for them.
:) ) however Microsoft and Nintendo seem to both be positioned well. Sony however seems to have only it's current last gen user base (no small factor though) to help bolster demand for the PS3. I think Blu-ray may have been too risky a bet for them.
In a wierd ironic twist Microsoft will now start leveraging its dominance in the OS market with Vista's support for live anywhere to help it's console and this strategy seems to be very well concieved (as oppossed to Sonys). Then agian its not so wierd to expect Microsoft to be the Master at leveraging its OS effectivly (like they haven't done that before).
It's too early to call this whole console war (but it sure is fun to speculate isn't it
Ves
...get Sony out of the picture, buy Nintendo.
vi ~/.emacs
We all thought MS would die because you couldn't get a lot of games for the console and it wasn't as cool as PS2. Now, Sony is making the blunder that will allow MS to be entrenched. Not that I mind competition, but two monopolistic behemoth making odd, stupid moves is not my idea of competition.
Sony is trying to push their High def DVD standard so as to gain acceptance and market share. They are constantly trying to introduce new formats to gain acceptance. However, their latest standard is not exciting. We are still using DVDs and still want to use DVDs, we don't need a high def standard any time soon.
The mistake is trying to entrench the standard by basically making the console overpriced. That will drive marketshare to Xbox, who already is out ahead with consoles and games in the next generation, despite the overheating issues. The console now costs as much as a midrange PC which is ridiculous, and now they are competing for people's money who are trying to consider if they want a PC or an PS3.
Sony's only hurting themselves. Hopefully Nintendo will get some benefit out of this in marketshare and more people and games will come to their console.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Seems to me that both the 360 and PS3 are overpriced but a lot of folks are buying 360's at $500-$700 on ebay so there's clearly a market for expensive game machines.
Microsoft introduced the 360 at an artificially low price and the product vanished. Prices are still high. I found a 360 for a shade under $500 at Costco Pricewatch has one offer at a $508.
Sony's saying the price is going to be $500 - right where the 360 is right now. When Microsoft finally delivers a $360 at the advertised $300 then, and only then, might you be able to afford a Revolution/360 bundle. Until then, they're just blowing smoke.
I've heard speculations that the Blu-Ray player retails at around ~$1000 USD. For $599+tax you're getting the same player that can play games. Sounds like a bargain to me. Considering to even GET HD-DVD player for the 360, you'll need to buy an external drive? That's going to be what? $399 Premium 360 + X where X is probably around $100-200 you're look at the SAME price. Is it worth it? Yes.
Sounds like someone is being drawn back to Anti-competitive business practices.
You mean like these:
Activision - Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, Marvel: Ulatimate Alliance, Call of Duty 3
AQ Interactive - Boxing Action
Atari - Dragon Ball Z Budokai: Tenkaichi 2
Atlus - Trauma Center: Second Opinion
Buena Vista Games - Disney's Chicken Little: Ace in Action Disney's Meet the Robinsons
Capcom - Resident Evil series
D3Publisher - SIMPLE series
Electronic Arts - Madden NFL '07, Medal of Honor Airborne
Hudson - Bomberman
Koei - Sengoku Action
Konami - Elebits, Soccer game
Majesco - Bust-a-Move Revolution
Marvelous Interactive / Natsume - Harvest Moon Heroes, Legend of the River King
Mastiff - Mr. D Goes to Town
Midway Games - The Ant Bully, Happy Feet
MTO - SAN-X All-star Revolution
Namco Bandai - Final Furlong, Mobile Suite Gundam, Digimon, One Piece Ulimited Adventure, Tamagotchi
SEGA - Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz, Sonic Wild Fire
SNK - Metal Slug Anthology
Spike - Necro-Nesia, Jawa
Square Enix - Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers, Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors
Taito - Turn it around!, Let's go by train!, Cooking Mama -Cooking with International Friends
Tecmo - Super Swing Golf Pangya
THQ - Avatar: The Last Airbender, SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab, Disney/Pixar Cars
TOMY - Battle Action
Ubisoft - Open Season, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Red Steel
Yeah, I sure with they had at least some third-party support. While I'm not necessarily defending the quality of some of these games (I'm not necessarily a Spongebob fan), the point it that third-party support exists.
Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
My housemate has an Xbox 360.
He's a bearded, long-haired, late-twenties guy who can usually be found swigging a can of Strongbow while he blows seven shades of hell out of *whatever* on his Xbox.
I could imagine him doing exactly the same thing if it were a PS3. However, I just can't see him rushing out to buy a Wii so that he can wave his arms around like a demented orchestral conductor to the tune of 'Bubble Bobble'.
He's just not the type, and he'd only end up knocking his can of cider over.
I reckon the intersection of 'possible Xbox 360 gamers' and 'possible PS3 gamers' is a lot larger than either of the two intersected with 'possible Nintendo Wii hand-wavers'. Regardless of the low price point of the Wii.
Will host for cash.
I mean, when you consider what the price of oil is going to be this winter, my X-Box 360 can double as a space heater! Where else can I get that kind of bargain from my gaming gear. Is Sony going to heat my home while I play? NO!
BAD title.
The title suggests some sort of an alliance between M$ and Nintendo.
What actually happened was the M$ propoganda machine used Nintendo to help them ridicule Sony, all without Nintendo's fore-knowledge or cooperation.
This is NOT M$ siding with anyone other than M$.
Stupid bad title.
Such as? I can't think of a single multi-disc game on either of those consoles off the top of my head.
-1 Stupidity
How the fuck did this ever get above 1 to start with? Everyone and their damned dog knows that Core = $300, Real system = $400. Except for this cock jockey, who doesn't understand what a BUNDLE is.
How about contextual use of language? I have an evil cat. He's never toppled a major world government. For a cat, he's still evil.
BTW, your hyperbole? That's "Nazi." Being a malicious shithead and/or conducting one's self in an antisocial manner for personal gain has been evil since, say, religion. Genocide is not required and I think there's little danger of confusion.
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
Maybe it is time for a new definition of next-generation that isn't simply based on graphics and processing power. A Prius is less powerful than a ferrari, but I would still say it is a next-generation car due to the hybrid engine. At the time of the Model T, new cars with better engines and more features were important, but the auto industry has hit a point where they needed to innovate rather than just build machines that could race 0 to 60 at a faster speed, because only a small segment of the market really wanted that. Gaming consoles seem to be headed down the same path. What could be more next-gen than a whole new way of approaching games?
The only thing that will take up a significant amount more space than a DVD are FMV sequences in hi-def.
So yeah, Blu-Ray is just for movies. And I like my games to have more game and less movie in them, though that's just me.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
This is one of two things:
I may be a Nintendo fanboy, but I am a capitalist first. Wii...
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
If there's no 360 price drop, I can see two Wii bundles surfacing. $200 for the system with one remote, and $250 for the system with two remotes and Wii Sports in flash. If Microsoft drops the 360's price, $150 and $200 for Wii.
This is pure business strategy and has nothing to do with the consoles. If someone re-released intellivision consoles to coincide with the WII, MS would start leaking internal memos praising this bold new product.
And then there are people like me. I would pay $400 more for the HD player, and definately NOT as an add-on. If it is an add-on like Microsoft is going to do, then little to no developers will ever develop for it. However, I do have an HDTV (1080i, and 720P) and was planning on buying a new HD DVD player, so now I can try a poor mans player out before I drop extra cash on a "better" one. To me this is similar to what a lot of us did with the first PS2's. We got a "cheap" DVD player that also played games.
The real question is this. Will Sony sell all 4 million units as fast as they can make them? Does anyone here honestly think that they won't? It appears that Sony has a clue on pricing their hardware and there is nothing saying that they can't or won't lower the price by next Christmas, "IF" they need to. That is a big "IF". People here in the Indianapolis area are already trying to pre order their systems every day at EB in the malls. They know the system will cost them well over $500, and they don't care.
Now, the market that Sony AND Microsoft seem to be ignoring is the children under 12. I see families with children under 12 getting the Wii (what a stupid name), because neither Microsoft OR Sony seems to have an abundance of good games for younger children AND the new system is going to cost around $250.
So I see the breakdown as this
Nintendo - Ownes the kids market with no real competition. However, real bargan shoppers will skip the new "expensive" systems and buy a cheap PS2. So this market may not be that large.
Microsoft - Fanboys of XBOX and Halo will buy this system this Christmas year. Also "buddies" of people that already own a 360, but that is about it.
Sony - The fanboys alone will buy every unit that can be made. Their only issue will be that people may buy another system "if" they can't get one for their kid this Christmas.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
The question is just what system you have together with the Wii. Price is only one component, it is also about Games, Content Availability of Blu-ray versus HD DVD, Network Gaming and Fanboyism: http://www.i4u.com/article5611.html
Uhh... you're aware that the Cell will likely run quite hot too, right?
It's unlikely Sony will solve the problem of waste heat in high performance processing, so you can enjoy similar hikes in the power bill whether you choose the 360 or PS3...
Something to keep in mind, too, is that FMV sequences are expensive, even at lower resolutions like 640/720x480, and that they can look fantastic at those levels. It wouldn't surprise me at all if, for example, companies saved money and disc space on those items for the 360 by rendering and storing at 480p and letting the console upconvert the output to the 720p/1080i. Most wouldn't be able to tell the difference (or care to).
This of course ignores the fact that we've been getting more and more of our cutscene action rendered using the game's engine. This allows developers to use assets that are already present, saving tons of disc space. It may not be "Toy Story" quality but it can get the job done and, done right, can increase the immersion factor.
A lot of heartfelt madness below. The expensive PS3 has USB ports, HDMI, a 60gig hard drive and rumour has it that it runs Linux. This will make a killer VDR among other things, at $650 CAN it's a steal. Oh yeah it plays games too. I can use this thing. M$ and Nintendo don't do anything I care about.
... Standards and Practices !
PenGun
Do What Now ???
is in Redmond.
They priced me out of the market. While I love the games, the games on the XBox are not bad either. 600 bucks... "Nuts"
"Nintendo's console doesn't have sequels into the double digits."
Are you kidding? Two generations earlier they blew through double digits with Mario 64.
Now it's Mario 128!!!!! Triple digits, man!
THEY'VE GONE PLAID!
Sony is infamous for showing pre-rendered trailers of their games, and the press laps it up.
Remember how the PS2 was going to do Toy Story style graphics in real time? It didn't and it doesn't. The PS3 won't either.
So you're falling for the pre-rendered trailer trick again. I think a guy as smart as you would ignore this kind of crap.
I have games for the current Xbox and PS2 that span more then one DVD.
No, you don't.
I wonder how much Sony is paying for this kind of nonsense post. Between this one and the several claiming that the PS3 is a good deal because if you buy a $600 PS3 you're saving money over buying a $1,000 Blu-Ray player, someone has GOT to be making a wage...
I bet Ballmer's looking forward to a chair throwing game on Wii.
I know this is a troll post by a Sony fanboi, but I couldn't resist.
... 4 ethernet ports (now only 1), 2 HDMI ports so you can output to two TVs (now only 1, and that's only on the premium), the boomerang controller is gone (although that's probably a good thing), Killzone 2 with awesome "in-game graphics" mysteriously missing this E3, and a Spring 2006 ship that has been delayed. Furthermore, they scoffed at MS for the 2 SKU model, but then went ahead and did it themselves (and WORSE since the core model is far crappier than the premium). Then during this year's conference, they talked about how their controller was truly innovative, even though everyone in the audience knew it's just a knock-off of the Wii-mote. And finally, their slides of the two SKU model during the conference listed the only difference as the size of the HD. But the press release later showed drastic differences between the two.
:)
It seems to me the company that needs to defend themselves the most from claims of lies and trickery is Sony. Shall we jump into the time machine and see what claims Sony made last E3? Let's see here
I'm not saying MS is amazing, doesn't make mistakes, etc. In fact, I think the 2 SKU model is pretty stupid as well, and the supply issues were pretty damaging. But man, compared to Sony, they look like saints recently.
And if MS is looking saintly, then Nintendo must be God.
-- jchenx
Since the DS Light ain't out yet in europe I had it flown in. This made the price just 50 euros below the price of a PSP (The price of PSP with a 1gig memory stick that in retail value is worth the 50 buck difference). So lets do a side by side of the two systems. I own both of them for a while now and both are good. Yes I did get that nice plague from the society for consumer slaves, don't be jealous.
The DS Light is the smaller of the two. So win to DS? No not exactly. First of it is the light that is smaller. I never compared the regular DS but if the Light is the smaller version then the regular must be pretty close in size to the PSP. Second is that the DS Light doesn't have enough body to fully accept GBA games. So they stick out. UGLY! The DS Light is a delight for playing my GBA games (the screen is just so much better then previous gameboys) but it makes the unit far less handy.
So only the light version is smaller and only if no GBA game is inserted. I call this a tie. Yes I know everyone thinks the DS is smaller but not if you put the two next to each other. The DS light is about the size of the PSP if would cut it off one of the controller sides at the line of the screen. About 2-3 centimeters.
HOWEVER. Pure centimeters ain't everything. The DS Light is just 3 centimeters shorter but that makes it just a lot more easy to carry. Especially for people who can't get away with wearing work pants.
Winner DS Light (DS and PSP tie).
Easy. The PSP weighs a ton it really makes your jacket hang uneven. DS Light wins.
The simplest difference is that the DS is a clamshell. This makes it look safer to carry around. No I haven't scratched the PSP screen yet (Apple give them a call for what material they used) but it remains scary to carry the PSP unprotected in my pocket. The DS? Who cares, it is just the outer covering, the screens are save.
DS Wins!
Frankly I don't know or give a damn, none of them last a long day of gaming. Both have replaceble batteries so if you know you are going on a long trip take extras. The PSP is more easily removed so PSP wins oddly enough. Perhaps I am just old and remember having to carry AA batteries with me for my walkman.
The PSP also deals better with powerloss. It attempts to save the game wich usually means you can resume where left off. It is also easier to adjust power settings (screen brightness) since the DS can't do it in game.
The PSP has an analog stick. Nice, but either mine is broken or I am to clumsy but it is next to impossible to use. A brilliant game like GTA Vice City is far harder then it needs to be because you can't properly steer. The DS has the famous touchscreen as a controller and it is truly brilliant. It works extremely well. I only get some falses moves in pictochat (suddenly a line that drops straight to the bottom) but never in game.
Game controls DS for the win! Except that there are other controls as well. Screen brightness can't be set unless in DS main menu. The volume is one of those horrible cheap sliders and the power button is far to easily switched in your pocket. Oh and the Sleep function when you close the lid doesn't work for GBA games. Compared to that the PSP has far better controls for controllin the unit itself. The only stupid thing is that the HOLD slider doubles as the power off. You can easily push to far and p
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
At the same site, you can see the Sony Blu-Ray player "coming soon" for $999. I'm beginning to suspect that the PS3 will be just as bad for playing Blu-Ray movies as the PS2 was (it got better later) for playing DVD movies.
And, let's face another reality. The Toshiba HD-DVD player is the flagship HD-DVD product, the very definition of fodder for early adopters. It won't be long at all before other companies join the fray and those prices are going to come down.
Well, Wii has USB 2.0, XBox 360 has USB 2.0. If Bungie gets the go-ahead from Microsoft to buy a $2000 Wii devkit, they could probably find a way to trick the 360 into thinking the Wii was a 360 controller, and allow Wii control on Halo 3(or really any game on the 360 made to use it), with purchase of an extra 360-Wii connectivity kit, including a Wii disc with the 360 controller emulation software and a male-male USB cord (They could charge $20 for it and still make a killing). Not saying it will happen, but the technology is there, and if they decide to do it, it shouldn't be too hard.
umm... yes I do. Xenosaga 2, Shadow Hearts:Covenant, Star Ocean:Till the End of time. All of those are two disk games for the current PS2 because of the graphics and the cut-scenes in those RPGs. To try to do the same kind of game with HD graphics will make them even bigger. I'd prefer to play an RPG on one Blu-Ray instead of multiple DVDs.
That's "I Have Been Told". :) Yeah, that'll teach me to post without sleep... and to ignore 360 announcements. What can I say? I must do my best to resist the dark side...
Honestly, I want Nintendo to come back on top... it seems like the last couple rounds humbled them a great deal. Humility + developers = good. I like Sony a lot, but it seems like the dept. in charge of the Playstation and its iterations has become the target of greedy execs elsewhere in the company... never good. That, and Kutaragi's lost his marbles. I like where he's going if I just wanted something great for myself, but Sony's got a responsibility, at least in my eyes, to keep Microsoft, the butcher of the art of game making, at bay.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Please, don't forget the cost of that second PS3 you'll be buying 2-3 years down the line because the BD-ROM broke. Their track record for the PS & PS2 is terrible for the optical drive... and now it's an entirely new technology which hasn't had thoroughly tested.
ART on dA
Yet if I look at my computer now. Well, this is an old dual P3 kayak. Second hand but still set me back 400 euros and that was a steal. My gaming rig however has components that cost around 500 dollars a piece. Have you seen those quad sli cards? check their prices and all of a sudden the PS3 seems a steal.
Remember back when widescreens tv's started to appear? They cost easily in the range of 10.000 guilders (5000 euros) at the time. Did they have trouble selling? Not really.
The PS3 is a gamble. It is going to be clearly the most expensive system on the market. The question is only if people are willing to pay it. Is the system going to be worth it for the early adopters (cause you can bet the price will drop within a few months).
IF Sony can deliver some killer games then people will fork over the cash.
The only caveat is that people must still have the money. If the rumors are true that it is going to launch AFTER christmas then Sony might just learn that the first months of the year are very bad for retail as everyone spend their money on the holidays.
That I think is their biggest threat. They need to launch in the west before the shopping season. That means as early as the 5th of december for holland. Don't and people will already have bought their kids a different system.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Great. You just listed three games for the PS2. Now, which multi-disc games do you have for the Xbox? The only one I own is Shenmue 2, and the extra disc contains the recap of Shenmue 1 (thus, the game is a single-disc game).
I don't doubt that there will eventually be two-disc games for the Xbox 360, at least if the FMV cutscene trend continues and the 360 gets some of that JRPG action. I guess I just don't place that big of a premium ($100-300 depending price cuts and specific console choices) on not having to get up once during a game lasting many hours to change the disc.
One thing I pointed out elsewhere, though, is that in-game cutscenes are becoming more and more the trend, and they take up a lot less space than FMV. They also cost less, and thus FMV is probably a really good place to make up for increasing development costs in the HD age.
The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
(I'm not necessarily a Spongebob fan)
The craziest rumor I've heard about the Wii is that the Spongebob game is actually really fun.
That's what I thought when I saw the footage. "Wow, this game actually looks like it could be good". My next thought was, of course, "If they can do this with spongebob, imagine what the guys who made Ikaruga could do with the Wiimote."
Yes, aside from the fact that the blu-ray drives are produced by Sony, and thus don't have to add a profit margin, as all consumer products do.
I don't fully recall, but wasn't Enter the Matrix a multiple-disc game? I had it for the GameCube, and there were 4 discs.
I think they should change "Bust-a-Move Revolution" to "Busting for a Wii".
I was one of the lucky few that stood out all night in the cold so that I could geta 360 on release day. Not because I am a MS fanboi, but because I like gaming, and it was the next gen console. Fast forward to today...
My 360 sits next to my TV getting turned on maybe once a week to check out Live and maybe play some Dead or Alive against my wife. There is a lack of good titles, and titles that have replayability. While I am not disappointed per say, I am going to buy one of the other consoles when they came out. And I am going to follow pretty much what was said... I have a 360, why not a Wii too? The price is great (we all assume), the game play looks fun, and when I need my 'hardcore' fix, I still have my 360.
The fact that there is not propriatary format for the next gen dvds has me wondering, and will keep me from purchasing a system (the PS3) that has it built in. What happens to the PS3 if HD-DVD becomes the defacto standard? You have an expensive console that can only play games. At least with the Xbox, if Blu-Ray becomes the standard, you can just plug in a standalone player. While I am sure that the PS3 will offer a standalone if it loses with the Blu-Ray, at least with the 360 I am not stuck with a betamax with a VCR plugged into it.
Microsoft has got me pegged. A hardcore system for those days I need it, and a 'fun' system that I can play some great games from the past on, and that my family can enjoy for the same price as a system that might be obsolete in 2 years...
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel...
Ok..
The ps3 is more expensive.. However maybe MS should compair it to their xbox 360 premium (400$) + the unanounced price of there HD-DVD drive (say 200$) + cost of xbox live (which makes xbox "better" __$ x each month + additional stuff you can buy).
And MS can affort to loose more money on each box (windows/office cash cow), so the more they sell the more they loose. Plus the 360 isn't even backward compatible so you'll have to buy alot of your older xbox games again or keep both units.. Until the older one breaks.
Also the PS2 has lasted 2 years more than the original xbox before it was eol.
PS3 is really expensive, but should come down in price in a year as those blu-ray drives get cheaper. Plus since all ps3s have hard drives they are probably more likely to be used by game developers (maybe blu-ray disk is slow in its first generation?). The larger blu-ray discs might be usefull for some games.
I'll probably get one when the price drops, as I have a number of ps2 games we like to play. That prior investment is a little of what Sony is banking on.
Sony is not the nicest of companies, trying to force proprietary hardware, and I generally avoid there products.
I wonder how much extra MS is going to make sony pay for copies of Windows??
We're not talking about MS here.
As more of a response to previous posts in Sony's defense:
Hmm, I think that sometimes evil can be construed as "endless propagation of proprietary formats (minidisc, UMD, ATRAC, etc.) and encouragement towards infinite sequels and, in the case of the PSP, watered-down ports as well as progressively-restrictive and forced firmware updates"
It's as if they don't really care about their customers because they have such a huge market share (in the games market anyway) that they can release sequel and port after another while limiting what people can do with their purchased hardware without fearing diminishing market presence.
That being said, I love dearly my PSP. I (and a good contingent of other PSP owners, that I'm aware of anyway) simply dislike Sony.
'Evil' might be a strong word, but they're not the best and most wonderful company around, either. Not that MS, Nintendo, Apple, etc. or anybody else is.
"For everything, there's Rupees. For everything else... there's Master Sword."
Not for any other console. The Gamecube's disc capacity is only 1.5GB, compared to 9.4 (or thereabouts) maximum for DVDs on the Xbox and PS2. This is why there are several multi-disc games for the Gamecube. There are a few for the PS2 (thanks to some JRPGs being more cutscene than game, but even FF X, FF X-2 and, I believe, FF XII are single-disc experiences on the PS2). As far as I know, unless there's some weird game that I've never heard of, the Xbox has zero multi-disc games.
Disenfranchised: Deprived of the rights of citizenship especially the right to vote
Have they disenfranchised an entire population...
To some extent, yes, yes they have. Also, Evil isn't solely as evil does, but what evil wants to do, or would do if it could.
These three games come in two single layer DVD's, they would fit perfectly in a DVD9
I'm not a financial analyst, but who does Sony think it's going to be selling it's PS3 to? Gamers will of course buy it, but they would buy it even if Sony had priced the machine at $1,000. The question is, how will a mainstream consumer respond? Sony is hoping a repeat of PS2 when consumers justified the then hefty $300 price tag because a DVD player was included with the machine. Now Sony wants to cram the new HD blue ray down consemers throats, only 6 years after DVD finally went mainstream. My feeling is, it's too soon. Consumers are not going to justify spending $600 on a machine when the only thing it offers in terms of movie playback, is a prittier picture. Take into account that most people don't have HD TV's, and that makes it even more likely that consumers wont swallow the price markup. My point is, Sony seems to think that the higher price for the machine will be offset by the inclussion of the new DVD playback technology. However they are not likely to suceed this time because all the the inherent advantages of switching from VHS to DVD are not present this time. The only thing the new format offers is greater storage capacity, translating into a prittier picture. A second concern, is that a lot of people simply won't be able to afford the new machine. how many parents would buy their teenage kids a game console for $600? Add in a couple of games, a second controller and other peripherals, and the price quickly exceeds $800. It's to much. You can get a laptop or a fully functional PC for less then that. Sony has over-shot, and i think the market is going to prove me right when their sales don't keep up with those of their previous machine.
Fool me once...shame on you, fool me twice...won't be fooled again (our president)
Off with you to Vulcan or somewhere similar. However there are different emotional levels, but phrases like immoral and unethical are currently being used to skirt around emotion.
That's okay, I wasn't being taken seriously before. In fact the whole point of avoiding emotions is to keep people from being taken seriously. Congratulations, you just made my foes list, but counter to slashdot designs, my foes aren't the people I want to ignore.
Yeah, I sure with they had at least some third-party support. While I'm not necessarily defending the quality of some of these games (I'm not necessarily a Spongebob fan), the point it that third-party support exists.
I think someone switched your S and T keys around on your keyboard as an April Fools joke and never told you.
I heard a crazy rumor that watching the Spongebob TV show is entertaining, but I don't believe it for a minute.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Whatever happened to making just a game console? The Wii, albeit having a funny name, looks too interesting to pass up. The games just look like fun: Mario Galaxy, new Smash Bros, Zelda, Metroid. The 360 has got a ton of options: traditional games (FPS, sports, racers, Gears of War, Halo 3, blah), fun XBLA games, retro titles on XBLA (CONTRA!!!!), and the whole "mini-game" aspect of collecting achievements and gamerscore.
But you're trying to sell me on the PS3 because it can play movies in HD? Puh-lease.
What Sony and their fanbois should be doing is trumpeting up the game exclusivity they still have, and not trying to defend the price so much. I admit I will be getting a PS3 at some point, because it'll be the only place to get God of War 2, MGS4, and all the FFXIII games. I may wait a year or two, but those are games I want to play that I can't get anywhere else.
Screw Blu-ray.
-- jchenx
If microsoft, as well as sony, aren't lawful evil, then what alignment are they?
Last time I checked soney had well over half of the ps2/xbox/gamecube generation market. It makes sence for Microsoft to use this stratigy to take a bite out of soney's market share. It also drives home the point that the PS3 is over priced, showing that you could have both an XBox and a Wii for the price of one PS3.
If it's dead, you killed it.
Usually the third place finisher doesn't have coat tails. And yes, no matter how creatively you juggle the figures, Ninetendo is third in console sales and that won't change with the next generation.
Everything you just about listed is a Japanese game (RPG, Strat, or ...other *KD)
Right now, who owns Japan?
If you said Sony-PS2, you are incorrect.
Nintendo DS owns Japan, with sales 10 times that of the PS2, right now. DS has sales figures that blow PS2 sales curves during its best of quarters away.
Now If Nintendo Wii dominates Japan
(and I believe they will, Japanese LOVE the type of gameplay Nintendo is providing, it is exactly how Japanese arcades thrive is with this type of unique interactive gameplay)
Nintendo Wii will steal the J-RPGs away from Sony.
(*SquareEnix follows money, If nintendo outsells Sony, Square will have games for the Wii a year later.)
(*Nippon Ichi has published for Nintendo before, and all of their games could be ported to a SNES, PS1, etc. They too could easily switch release plans to Nintendo if they won console sales. Katamari could have been on Gamecube easily, and Namco has published quite a bit to Nintendo before. The only reason I believe Katamari didn't make gamecube was that by KS's release, GC had mostly tanked in sales.)
So I honestly could see owning a XBox360 for all but J-RPGs, Owning a Wii for unique gameplay, Nintendo Franchises, and Japanese games like J-RPGs and unique stuff like KD
Ok.. The ps3 is more expensive.. However maybe MS should compair it to their xbox 360 premium (400$) + the unanounced price of there HD-DVD drive (say 200$) + cost of xbox live (which makes xbox "better" __$ x each month + additional stuff you can buy).
Most people are quite happy with DVD and feel no need for blu-ray. Both the PS2 and Xbox where only marginal DVD players, my samsung is substancially better a good TV. So, in this case, I am glad MS doesn't force people to buy a expensive unproven drive.
And MS can affort to loose more money on each box (windows/office cash cow), so the more they sell the more they loose. Plus the 360 isn't even backward compatible so you'll have to buy alot of your older xbox games again or keep both units.. Until the older one breaks.
The 360 is backwords compatable with several hundred original Xbox games. We will see how compatable the ps3 is with original games. Microsoft is ok with losing mone on each 360 because they want to make it back on live subscriptions and game sales.
PS3 is really expensive, but should come down in price in a year as those blu-ray drives get cheaper. Plus since all ps3s have hard drives they are probably more likely to be used by game developers (maybe blu-ray disk is slow in its first generation?). The larger blu-ray discs might be usefull for some games. It took 19 months for the original to drop in price. I seriously doubt they will drop the price before 2 years, they are losing hundreds on each sale and the hardware is very new. So, in two years, it will cost what the 360 does now?
I'll probably get one when the price drops, as I have a number of ps2 games we like to play. That prior investment is a little of what Sony is banking on.
Considering the radical change in hardware, I imagine they will have the same emulation issues the 360 had.
~nate
I hate what Microsoft has done to gaming: gone and brought American developers's into the console market
Way to be racist, Jack. "Oooh, better not play American games. Damn stinky Americans always making terrible games. Because, you know, what nationality you are really affects the quality of game you produce."
Who modded this garbage up?
So he says the PS3 is more expensive because it brings more value to the consumers. He says that Cell and BluRay are worth the extra money.
What value to those things in and of themselves bring? The Cell processor is a processor. People don't buy consoles for what kind of processor it contains - they buy it because the games rock. Sony really should have stated something like "because the PS3 graphics will be 3x better than 360." (But they can't because it won't). But such a statement would at least make sense to the consumer.
What value does BluRay bring? Last I checked, the vast majority of consumers don't even have HDTV. The vast majority of those that do can only do 720p. And exactly when will Netflix start offering BluRay discs?
It comes down to this: when I walk down the aisle in Best Buy, I'm going to see 3 different displays. Wii's display will show a $250 console with very fun games and a cool way to interact with them. The 360 display will show a $300 console with amazing next-gen graphics and large game library. And the PS3 display will show a $500 console with amazing next-gen graphics and medium-sized game library.
2 of those 3 displays will be interesting to the average consumer.
For the price of a BMW I can buy a lada AND have money left over for gas.
For the price of an armani I can by a C&A suit AND have money left over rent.
The only thing that matters is IF the PS3 will be considered worth the price. ALL the consoles have been expensive at launch and you could always buy a cheaper console.
By your logic the gamecube should have done much better. Even today I can buy that one and games for the price of its competitors.
So why didn't the gamecube do better then? Because price don't matter. Ask iRiver why their cheaper players (some would even say better players) not sell as well as Apples offerings?
Because people consider the iPod worth the extra money.
Check for a moment the price of the video iPod and now check its specs vs something like the PS3. Price don't stop people. Never has, never will. Oh people will rant about it being to expensive but that is all good. The only reason you care something is too expensive is if you want it. That means they will have you when the first price cut is announced.
Just check the price a DS Lite goes for. 2x the price of a gamecube. Yet they can't keep the damn things in stock. People WILL pay.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Something Sony really has to consider is the deflation (or maybe bursting) of the housing bubble that has driven US consumer spending in recent years. In 2007, there will be a whole lot of ARM's that will adjust and exotic loans that will convert. I'm not enough of an expert to say whether the real estate bubble will actually pop or do a "soft landing" per se, but I do think that in 2007, homeowners will cut back spending hugely. We're talking far fewer home equity loans, and the vast majority of helocs will be for things like paying off debt.
What this means is that mom and dad have to choose between spending $250 for Wii, $300 for 360, or $500 for PS3. Mom and dad will be struggling to keep up the payments on their adjusted ARM for the $800K house they bought last year. Wii will struggle a little. 360 will struggle more. PS3 might get torn a new as*hole.
The PS3 won't cost just $600, nor does the Xbox 360 cost just $400. They're going to cost you $40-60 more than that just to fire up one game.
Actually, not necessarily.
I haven't heard much about the topic, but does anyone know if there's going to be a parallel thing in Sony's free online service to Microsoft's "Live Arcade"? From what I hear (I don't own an XB360), lots of XB360 owners are having a better time with the Arcade mini-games than the big block-buster releases, and for free. (Well, rolled into the cost of the console, anyway.) Anybody have any info about a Sony "Arcade"?
"We have 100 percent market share of the next-generation, and their job is to take that from us," said Moore.
I am eager to see their 100 percent market share of the next-generation fall to 0 percent the day Wii or PS3 launches in Japan...
As for the flash thing, I think "dude is high." He might have had a point if he had noted that it was easy to connect a PS3 to a PC via Ethernet and transfer files (I wonder if it is) but USB??
All the Sony guy is saying here is that if you want to buy the low-end player and still read CF cards from your camera a USB reader will work - it all mounts as external storage anyway.
I also doubt it's USB so much as USB 2.0 High-Speed (the fast one). So it still would be useful for file transfer, though possibly it will be able to connect to network shares...
the compelling thing about the $100 more version is the slightly larger HD, and the included wireless for those that don't like cables everywhere.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Those kids 12 and under are going to love playing Project HAMMER.
Yeah, gosh, I can't believe that Apple things that people are going to buy a music player for $400. It is so overpriced, they are really up a creek on that one. Sure, hardcore music listeners will buy them, but what about the regular consumer, that never listens to music?
I think you might be mistaken - the [PS2's] core processor is a ~300Mhz, 128bit processor IIRC, but it can perform 2 64bit instructions per cycle.
While you "DO THE MA+H" like the Atari Jaguar marketing crew did (dual 32-bit CPUs and putting the blitter on a 64-bit data bus == 64-bit console), what do you call the Pentium III with its triple 32-bit integer pipes plus FPU/MMX/SSE?
Microsoft and Yahoo vs Google...
Looks like whenever Microsoft doesn't lead a field they resort to teaming up with others to bring the big bully down
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
Blue-Ray is a High Definition DVD( HD DVD ) format as you know.
DVD is a trademark. Blu-ray Disc may be a high-definition optical video storage format, but it's not a high-definition DVD® format. Likewise, a Kyocera copier is not Xerox® and Charmin bathroom tissue is not Kleenex® Cottonelle®.
Interesting to see some game titles with 'Revolution' in them. I'm guessing they will change.
You mean like Konami's Dance Dance Wii, the long awaited sequel to ParaPara Paradise?
Not entirely sure what I was thinking. I couldn't sworn that damn thing cost more.
Oh well, earned myself a fine and pointy dunce cap for the day.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
I'm looking forward to Mario Galaxy and waving my Wii wand around :)
Surely, as long as you're male, you can quite easily wave your 'wii wand' around all you like... just probably not in front of other people without being considered rude at best, or a pedafile at worst.
Still, for all the females out there, you'll get to find out what's so much fun about waving one's wii wand... and why all us guys just love to do it!
Nintendo isn't aiming at exactly the same market as Sony and Microsoft with the Wii, they seem to be aiming at non-traditional gamers and kids with their relatively inexpensive and underpowered system. Meanwhile Sony is aiming squarely at Microsoft's hardcore gamer market with less emphasis on creativity and more on system specs. Microsoft's system is kind of sitting in the middle between the PS3 and Wii, both in terms of price and performance. They have to be counting on the first-to-market advantage and the sticker shock of the PS3 to carry their own sales, might as well pay lipservice to the Nintendo machine and hope a few people really do buy the 360 and Wii over a PS3.
Actually that's one thing that's bugging me about E3, is that there's nothing by Treasure :(
And for parents still living with their kids...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
My point is that the HD-DVD add-on for the XBox 360 should be considerably cheaper than Toshiba's $500 player. If the XBox 360 premium bundle gets a $100 price cut ($300) at the time of PS3's launch and the HD-DVD add-on costs $300 (or less), then Sony's PS3 might not look like such an outstanding value compared to XBox 360 with HD-DVD add-on.
I used the words "theoretically" and "should be" because I want to see the final shipping products before I call either blue laser bundle a bargain.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
I think a lot of peope assume since the 360 doesn't have a HD-DVD drive now it will never have one since the general rule of thumb is that consoles don't change. If HD Drives drop in price enough (HD-DVD or Blu-ray depending who wins) microsoft will start putting them in standard and just tell everyone that now your getting the "superduper-core edition".
Since microsoft claims that they will be sticking to the DVD format for games it won't really make a huge difference either way.
Why do people keep trotting out those ebay prices, as if they were statistically significant? How many people actually paid $700 for their $400 hardware? 1000, out of 3,000,000 so far, if that? 0.03% isn't much of a market.
If Sony were to launch at a price that wasn't artificially low, they'd have an extremely disappointing launch and a consumer backlash that would make the current price flap look like a raised eyebrow.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I agree, you do get alot in the PS3.
:)
It is:
1. PSOne game player (yes for us who still love playing old psx games, hey gran turismo 2 is still one hellofa game.
2. PS2 game player (the amount of A+ titles for the PS2 library is above and beyond probably any video game system that ever existed so far)
3. PS3 game player
4. cd player
5. dvd movie player
6. hi-def bluray movie player
7. wifi networking entertainment hub
that is alot. the sheer amount of games from the entire playstation library is staggering, and it looks like sony will always make their next gen system backwards compatible.
I'm using Occams Razor at this point - it would just be a lot harder to not have cards inserted in the readers do anything else but mount as external storage, as that is what the off the shelf parts would do... I'll admit it's possible there's soemthing else going on but especially with the way he casually laid that out it would be hard to imagine it worked any other way.
Now what the PS3 does with that external storage, I have no idea...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It'll help for the 2 hours of HD FMV that will be included in Final Fantasy XII that wouldn't fit with the game ona single dvd disc.
Hmmm... Pie...
What happens to the PS3 if HD-DVD becomes the defacto standard? You have an expensive console that can only play games. At least with the Xbox, if Blu-Ray becomes the standard, you can just plug in a standalone player. While I am sure that the PS3 will offer a standalone if it loses with the Blu-Ray, at least with the 360 I am not stuck with a betamax with a VCR plugged into it.
IMHO, by the time either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD becomes a defacto standard, we'd be able to buy standalone players for $20 bucks. Why worry about the looming format war that won't be resolved for years to come.
While PS3 console prices are an issue, what about games? Should I expect to be paying 70-80$ for a game?
Not that I mind competition, but two monopolistic behemoth making odd
As much as I hate sony, I am not sure you can call the monopolistic - maybe monolithic was the word you were after. Even their minidiscs are/were produce by other companies. To be fair, you almost have to be this big to get a chance of starting a console, it is such a big deal these days.
The mistake is trying to entrench the standard by basically making the console overpriced. That will drive marketshare to Xbox, who already is out ahead with consoles and games in the next generation, despite the overheating issues
I think gamers like you are completely off base.
I don't say what Sony is doing is good for them, but I look at the japanese market, which, despite what the naysayers say, is still the main relevant market, especially since most innovative and high selling games come from there.
And when I look at even last weeks chart, I don't see people driven to XBox 360.
I see PS2 selling 16 times more than XBox360 (XBox360 selling 2000 units). I don't even see one XBox360 game in the top 50 of games sales. And it was the same the week before.
People don't want next-gen, people want fun at affordable prices. I'm not even sure people want next-gen consoles yet.
Since last gen, when MS went into the race, the consoles are out to fast, the pace is really too fast, especially at these prices.
People won't keep up.
The console now costs as much as a midrange PC which is ridiculous, and now they are competing for people's money who are trying to consider if they want a PC or an PS3
I doubt that. They're putting things in their console, for people that have big HDTV sets with HDMI support, which are expensive.
Sony's only hurting themselves. Hopefully Nintendo will get some benefit out of this in marketshare and more people and games will come to their console
Sony are definitely not hurting themselves, or perhaps they are in North America, but that's not the relevant market.
But given the current trends in Japan (DSLite is trouncing everything) and knowing how Nintendo makes value add for its products (with exchange between their handhelds and home consoles), I bet the Wii will be a huge success. Which would be surprising to me, given that Nintendo consoles are hard to pirate most of the time.
The titles of teh Taito games just crack me up. =)
Do not be alarmed. This is only a test.
Evil isn't a superlative :-P
The Jaguar's CPU (and/or GPU, I don't remember) could perform 64-bit operations on 64-bit registers.
So could the 8087 FPU. And was the Sega Genesis a 32-bit console if its MC68000 CPU had 32-bit registers and a 16-bit data bus?
for $600 you get an hi-def video player AND a console.
As you point out, it costs $500 for a Toshiba HD-DVD player. What you neglected to mention was that if you want a BR player you have to pay more. If you look across the range of BR and HD-DVD players announced, the BR simply cost more.
Now for BR to beat HD-DVD they need to get more players out there, and more people buying movies in that format. Sony are currently undercutting all their BR licensees with the PS3 - they really really can't be happy about this (possibly why they've deliberately hobbled the cheaper PS3 to at least allow the low-end BR makers to produce an HDMI player for less than Sony's more expensive PS3?)
Overall Sony are pretty much going it alone. They're betting the number of BR players put out there solely with the PS3, will crush the number of HD-DVD players put out there by all the different manufacturers and Microsoft.
It's a brave bet - if it fails though, it's just going to land them making expensive PS3s for a very long time.
Just to have a look at Sony - Betamax, minidisc, memory stick/duo/micro, SACD, UMD blah blah. The have a long history of creating media formats to line their own pockets, that never take off outside of their own product line (and then usually curl up and die). Quite often they're technically better - but they never manage to get other companies to use them. I hoestly can't see why BR will be any different.
Don't you get it? they want a free wii!! (IMHO for the balmer children)
Think about Microsoft siding with Nintendo over sony. One can only laugh. Who cares what they are siding about. Just think about it. What difference does it make? Microsoft wants the marketshare so they can own the market. Of course they're going to side with the underdogs. They are after sony's marketshare not nintendo's. Just like they are siding with Yahoo over Google. This is simply the sissy kid protecting himself against potential bullies by siding with anyone that gives him protection and advantage.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Relatively to the PS3 and 360.
You forgot to put his typo in bold. Come on, people, if you're going to be an ass, you might as well go all out :-)
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
I learned my lesson using a game console as a DVD player with the PS3. I have all that other stuff already. I do not need to buy it all over again.