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How Important is Gears of War for Microsoft?
In todays Opposable Thumbs column at Ars Technica, Ben Kuchera wonders out loud on the importance Microsoft is placing on Gears of War . Despite assurances that 360 games will look better, it's still a toss-up over whether Microsoft or Sony will emerge as the graphical powerhouse of the seventh generation. With ad copy flying fast and only a few weeks until the game's launch, this is Microsoft's last chance to persuade any on-the-fence PS3 fans. From the article: "The question is: does Sony need to beat it? It's not important right now--Sony is delivering what amounts to a paper launch this year; a few people will get systems but the vast majority will be waiting until supplies get a little heavier. It is clear that Sony is going to have to show those early adopters something strong and at least as good as Gears of War in terms of graphics: even thought it's a second generation game against first generation titles, the $200 price difference means people want to see better than 360 quality, and unless we get it now there will be some grumbly early adopters."
Sony is screwed... I'll still be buying a PS3 though. No 1st gen title will be able to match something as good as gears of war (or as good as it should be). I see no reason for someone to buy a PS3 over a 360 this holiday season unless they already own a 360 (which I'm sure most of the first PS3 buyers will).
What's especially interesting is that this, the first game on the Unreal Engine 3 (an engine that supports OS X, Linux, Windows, Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3), is only available for the Xbox 360. I wonder how much that cost Microsoft!
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
Sony needs to do so for a variety of reasons. They need to justify their high pricetag. They need to justify their hype. Perhaps most importantly they need to justify their architecture. I think, and I'm not alone, that Cell is going to turn out to be a dog just like the Emotion Engine, Holding back a performance starved architecture. They may be able to cover up for it a bit by having ditched the Cell in favor of an Nvidia graphics chip, so what they have will probably look alright, but I'm not convinced they'll be able to deliver immersive environments capable of competeing with later gen 360 titles due to performance starved physics processing.
OK, don't get me wrong I like my XBox 360. I've decided to primarily game on my 360 and my eventual Nintendo Wii. The 360 is a decent piece of hardware and some of the games are quite fun.
But I've noticed some slowdown and tearing in certain parts of some games; most noticeably certain dark sections of "Dead Rising" and some portions of the new "Test Drive" game, not to mention multiplayer Full Auto. This is running at 720p.
Now, my problem is, if the developers already hitting the limits on this, how much further can they go? Sure, as time goes on they learn to optimize their code for the 360 better, but this is still pretty early. How can they expect to make games "look much better" down the line without killing the performance?
M$ has been lining ALOT of companies pockets to hold off certain projects(Crysis, Alan Wake, etc) to coincide with the release of Vista and their MS live service; which is EXACTLY what they have been doing with Gears of War on the 360...In fact I see the PC release being *delayed* until the Vista launch...
"As for Gears Of War. I don't think a 3rd person shooter will have the power to persuade, especially since you'll be able to buy it on the PC." Not before Xmas you won't. In fact, almost nothing has been said about the PC release for months AFAIK. It will probably still happen, but MS will keep it 360 "exclusive" for a while.
Look, they are going to look *exactly* the same. The 360 and PS3 will be sufficiently close in their performance that it will be practical to use the same game engine and the same art assets hence saving two arms and three legs off total development cost. Exactly the farking same, mark my words.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Sony doesn't need to beat Gears of War.
They've got to beat Gears of War, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Forza Motorsport 2, and Blue Dragon. Sony _wishes_ all they had to do was compete against Gears of War. Microsoft is obviously pulling out their AAA game on all fronts (including Japan - they've got a bunch of slick-looking JRPGs coming out), and Sony can't afford to ignore that.
I don't think _Microsoft_ is relying on Gears of War per se - they've got a lot of good stuff in the pipeline. Whether Microsoft needs to beat Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid is a better question...
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Sony actually has to have a "must buy game". Sony will sell millions of consoles in the life time, but that's assured only because of the fact square is making FFXIII for it. However more and more developers are going to the Xbox 360 because it's easier to program for and has a longer install base.
The next gen war hasn't started but the soliders are already assembled, and Sony is in the valley with no cover, and little reinforcements. Nintendo has already gone home to the beer hall and had a party, and Microsoft is rolling a giant ball (Katamari if you will to the edge of the cliff)
The problem with Sony's position is unless your in japan there's little reason not to pick up a 360 over a ps3. Most of the best games will be multi platform and those that arn't will have a compareable game on the other system. The JRPG factor is an inconvience but there's already a couple of those on the 360 and more coming.
Now Japan is Sony's last fortress, but it'll erode if Mistwalker delivers two great RPGs in the next 6 monthes. That alone will start Microsoft's rise there hopefully (and if that doesn't nothing will)
Sony needs to sell systems NOW even with out true games. Having an install base of 2 million by christmas is nothing next to Microsoft's nearly 5 million already. Sony needs to bring something to get gamers to buy the system, at 200 dollars more, and similar or weaker games (and they are weaker for exclusives) Sony isn't going to sell millions just for that. Even japanese companies are making 360 games.
The simple fact is for every launch title (out of sub 20) the 360 have similar games. To me the only interesting one was Bladestorm (from Koei) but if I add up my interest I see maybe 200 dollars worth of "interest" out of the 600 I have to build up and this includes "GT HD". They need to get 600 dollars out of people and they arn't going to do it with ports, or even simultanious launches.
They've had the advantage, they took the risk but they didn't insure victory, and that's what will kill them. They didn't just come out late, they are coming out late and weak.
And btw Microsoft is still at the beer hall, Mario just grabbed Samus' bum. Good times.
I don't think that this next-gen 'war' will be won or lost on just one title. I think the 'real' differences will be made by variety in what the consumers are offered. Microsoft are clearly going all out to gain as much ground as they ca, and Sony are vulnersble, in the sense that they have a great deal to live up to. I think the real winners could be the punters, all they consoles will want to appeal to as many people as possible, and when there is tangible competition comercially, it is usually the consumers who win. I hope.
When I first read the title of this post, I thought it was going to be an article about the military industrial complex. I remember hearing somewhere that the largest buyer of Microsoft products was the US government, and I know that the largest department of the federal government is the Department of Defense. Isn't the question of how important the US war machine is to Microsoft more important than this story about some game?
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
how important is gears of war? here is the correct link http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/10 /3/5485
If the PS3 is even compatible with the PS2 version of Okami, GoW (which I've pre ordered for the 360, mind you) may well be screwed.
If the PS3 has its own Okami or Okami-lookalike, or TES 4 with its new expansion pack, etc., the 360 is even more screwed.
FYI, Okami is this tres uber cool looking game where your goal is to majorly restore things rather than destroy stuff. It's not MANLY like GoW but it's highly rated, and I even dusted off my old PS2 to play it. There are *NO*, and I repeat *NO* 360 games that look as pretty as the lowly PS2's Okami, and only Oblivion is more *fun*. (IMHO)
If games like this come out for the PS3, the Xbox 360 has only one choice: adapt, come up with really good games, or die. Pinning all their hopes on GoW isn't even workable for the short run.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
this is Microsoft's last chance to persuade any on-the-fence PS3 fans
Absolute rubbish. That implies that the release of the PS3 will remove all inclination to purchase an XBox 360. In reality, the opposite is true. I didn't like the Xbox much at all, so wasn't expecting to like the 360. As things stand, it looks somewhat better for my gaming needs than I expected. I did expect to want a PS3 (since I love my PS2), but right now it's worrying me more than enthusing me.
There's no way I'm buying an XBox 360 before the PS3 comes out, but once it is out it has to start proving itself worthwhile. If it doesn't then that's when I'll be looking to the 360.
This isn't Microsoft's last chance at anything.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Halo 3 was supposed to be the one. Too bad, Billy Boy.
Sony will get UT2007, which will support user created content and is network compatible with the PC.
My Aussie relatives are visiting next month. We've already blocked out a night to stand on line for a PS-3. Talk about devotion? Traveling half a world for a region-locked console? No, I don't grok it either.
Okami is certainly very pretty. I do wish more games went for that style of look (cell-shaded goodness, etc.). I did see one game for the 360 that looked pretty promising though: Eternal Sonata. (It's also called Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dreams in Japan, and is releasing there first) When I first saw the trailer for that game, Okami definately came to mind.
... from your standard action/shooter/sports fare, to more "highbrow" games, such as Shadow of the Colossus and Okami. The 360 is starting to look a lot more diverse, which is good, but it certainly has a lot of ground to catch up.
Of course, it'll be a few months (if not a year) before we find out how that game actually turns out to be as good as Okami is.
Also, there IS an "Okami-lookalike" for the PS3, called White Knight. Again, though, it'll be a while before that releases and we see how good that game really is. (And it's probably the only PS3 title, aside from FFXIII that I'm remotely interested in)
That said, I don't think one game alone can "screw over" a console. It's not true for either Okami or Gears of War. I think what's important is the trend of the types of games for a console. Xbox got essentially labelled as a console for mostly shooters, western RPGs (like KOTOR and the TES series), and multiplatform games. And I'd have to agree with that sentiment. Meanwhile, the PS2, being the 800lb gorilla, got everything
-- jchenx
I think that every person who is thinking of purchasing an Xbox 360 has certain criteria before they buy. Some people will wait until it falls below $399 for the premium version. Some people are waiting for there to be a sufficient number of games that they desire. Most people will wait for a combination of these factors.
The question is whether or not Microsoft can change the preference of PS2 owners from Playstation to Xbox. It will take a decent price (I believe $299 for the premium system will really start to sell systems), a large number of high quality games and respectable online play.
From what I've heard, Microsoft has an install base of about 5 million Xbox 360s. I think if Halo 3 had been released, that would be about 8 to 10 million. Gears of Wars is a bit like a Halo 3 substitute. I'm not saying that it's not an excellent game in its own right, but the Halo franchise is one of the major reasons people buy Xboxes.
If the PS3 becomes a $599 console you can't buy before 2007 it will help Microsoft a lot. Sure there are going to be people paying $2000 for it on Ebay, but most people want it for a much higher price. The question is when will the PS3 hit $299? That will be the point at which most people will consider buying it. Judging by the PS2 entry in Wikipedia, it took 18 months for it to drop by a third and another year before it dropped in price again. That would make it 2008 before it hits $399 and 2009 or later before it hits $299 for the premium version. If the Xbox 360 followed roughly the same price drops, by the time you can purchase a PS3 in Europe (March 2007) the Xbox 360 premium would be roughly $266. Probably $299 with Project Gotham Racing.
Microsoft's best strategy for Christmas would be to release a $349 Premium Xbox 360 bundle with Gears of War and Project Gotham Racing in North America and Europe.
Sony will have demo kiosk in a lot of places real soon now (tm). Why don't you simply wait for those to show up somewhere near you and then judge for yourself the difference in quality.
I know I wasn't impressed with the XBox360 demos and unless PS3 makes a different first impression they will have to proove their worth. However, if it does make a very nice impression, then...
You hit the nail on the head... diversity is the key. Betting heavily on Gears of War or even some game like Okami or whatever, is not indicative of a diversity oriented strategy. That's so much more accurate than what I said.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
The Pentagon is by no means the largest department in the federal government in terms of money spent. The DOD budget for 2006 is projected to be $419.3 billion, while the
Health and Human Services will spend $642 billion, almost 1/3 more.
Of course, you'll never read about this in the news, since it sells a lot more commercials to talk about how the goverment is spending billions to kill people while millions of children are starving in the streets.
In any case, why carp about one of the things that the constitution says the Feds can spend money on when they're interfering in a hundred other places where powers were supposed to be reserved to that states?
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Bioshock isn't a 360 exclusive. It'll be coming out for the PS3. Later. But it will nonetheless. I'm going to get the PC version.
I think it's a pretty precarious position to be in depending on a genre which plays sub-par on your platform, ie., FPSes are the biggest titles for the 360.
Mass Effect looks great.
Forza and GT will remain competitive.
I don't know a single person interested in Blue Dragon. There's far more interest in JRPGs coming out for the PS2 than there is for everything the 360 has to offer.
This console "war" won't be decide this year or even next. Sony still has more developer support than MS, the price of the PS3 *will* come down -- they've already reduced the launch price in Japan --, and Sony owns a lot of "must have" franchises. And the PS3 also has more room to grow -- 50GB dual-layer BD discs, a HD on all systems, and the Cell procesor(read about what the best devs have to say about it instead of just the ones saying "Wah it's too hard") should prove very useful down the road.
But it's the games that matter most. And Sony still has more developers on board.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I don't really think GoW is that relevant. There are very few people who believe 360 will beat PS3 in terms of graphics and this isn't going to change that. Console FPS fans already have a strong leaning towards MS, so they're not going to win many converts there. By the time there are enough PS3s on the market to actually compete with MS, Sony's next line of games (among which are some that people have been waiting on) will be out that will look better than their initial launch.
I think the Analysts are getting a bit too interested in this development in terms on console sales. I think the game will do great, but not be tipping point for (or against) MS.
Mistwalker Studios (which was bought by and published by Microsoft) is releasing one japanese rpg (Blue Dragon--which looks okay mind you not awesome, it's being hyped a great deal but it doesn't seem particulariy amazing when i see screenshots and possible gameplay). There was one more jrpg (the rest of the content is mostly american).
White Knight and FF's on the ps3 are more then enough to win the japanese and myself over (specially white knight). I am looking forward to the Lost Odyssey which should be released next year though. But i cannot imagine myself buying a whole system for one goddamn game I might like. I can for the ps3 though, free blu-ray player that cost less then a standalone player. I'm also a gran turismo freak so I can't imagine myself without a ps3.
The difference between HD feeds and DVD are as clear as night as day on my particular tv. I'm just not to impressed with first gen hd discs enough to shell out the money for em.
Hmmm... Pie...
One game alone is not going to make the majority of the playstation's fanbase or people expecting to initially purchase a PS3 jump ship. A few? Sure. But this isn't the eighties where that might have worked betwen atari and intellivision or nes and sega. Many PC gamers that are also console gamers such as myself will barely mutter an audible pshaw whether GOW sinks or swims. Hello? Halo anyone? Whether casual gamers or people that don't know jack between analog and infared, or fanboys just in it to be in the majority of what's 'cool' will react is anybody's guess. So this one title's success is not all 'that' important to users picking one system over the other initially in my opinion. A little bit though? Yes, I think so. What is really important for 360 to win over loyal gamers and diehards as well? Having crucial success in the RPG arena and releasing a handful of must play RPG titles, old-school and new. If they do that, they're bound to move the 360 to a hardcore, diehard segement of the gaming community that lives for these kind of titles, many based in Japan. If they can obtain and maintain the best, most must play RPG titles available they'll move a lot closer to a number one place globally.
Gaming for over 25 years
I don't know that Sony is concerned with GoW, or if Microsoft is counting on GoW to become the next Halo, but there is something to consider here. The quality of the games Epic has released in the past for consoles has been miserable. Unreal Tournament and Unreal Championship 1 and 2 were horrible products that died quick deaths in the console world. One minor exception was the Sega Dreamcast version of UT, which was actually quite good (ported by Secret Level, of course).
There are two things that play in Epic's favor this time around. First, the enormous marketing capability of Microsoft. Epic has never had a publisher with the capacity to push a game into people's homes as they do now. The second great hope is that, since this game is being designed specifically for the 360, it should be quite optimized. Previous console games were ports from the PC.
In the big scheme of things, Microsoft will be fine with or without a big hit in GoW. The real question I ask myself is how important is GoW to Epic and their future as a game developer? Epic will thrive licensing their engine, but if GoW (and the upcoming UT2007) fail to deliver big numbers, is it time for Epic to hang up the game development and focus in 100% on the engine itself?
There's been a lot of real bad-looking games on the 360. The problem isn't that the hardware is bad or even that there's something wrong with the engines: it's that everyone is making ugly games. Take, for example, saint's row: it's good at drawing lots of shiny objects with very many polygons and shadows, at high resolution even. But the artwork is bland, completely devoid of charm and magic (well, a game like that could probably use more grit than anything, but it doesn't even have that - compare to the atmosphere of, say, Max Payne). Ditto for Dead Rising and Perfect Dark. The reason everyone has a boner for that PS3 demo is not that it's really doing anything technically that the 360 couldn't probably pull off, it's that the animation is fluid, the environment is beautifully designed, it just has good aesthetic sense.
Graphical superiority is basically equivalent to artistic superiority. If you want better looking games, you really good artists and designers more than you do better hardware.
OH I'm certain they get conspiracy theories for free.
While I agree that the look for Perfect Dark was awful ("Look ma! Everything is SHINY!"), I actually liked the atmosphere in Dead Rising and Saint's Row, but maybe that's just me. No doubt, there's still a lot of uncanny valley happening with the characters, but the environments themselves were fine. If you played Saint's Row, you actually get the feeling that it ISN'T supposed to be a really gritty, dark game. There's a lot of humor in there, so the "non-gritty" look fits. Versus Dead Rising which is the complete opposite, since it's a horror game.
But more importantly, I thought both games were a lot of fun because of the gameplay, despite whatever graphical issues they had. That's ultimately the most important factor.
I wouldn't say that PS3 titles look that much better. Maybe it's just me, but I still see a lot of uncanny valley issues with games on both platforms. The problem is the graphics capability of both have grown tremendously, so that's close to photorealism at times. But it's off by just enough to be really creepy. Just take a look at movement, or eyes. (And BTW, make sure you don't get fooled by pre-rendered cinematics, for both the PS3 or 360)
But as artists and designers get better at responding to the uncanny valley issue, the games will start to look better. The Mass Effect trailer for the 360 looked pretty good. They spent a lot of time on facial expressions, especially the eyes, so that it doesn't look nearly as creepy as, say, Oblivion. It also helps that there are a lot of "alien" characters in that game, as well as humans in bulky armor, etc.
In the meantime, the Wii gets to benefit with characters that are just on the left of uncanny valley, so they're quite familiar and approachable. The best example is Mario, which looks very "kiddy", but is much more aesthetically pleasing than, say, any human model in Oblivion. Okami, for the PS2, is another great example, since it's cel-shaded goodness. Not realistic, but very artistic and gorgeous. (And there are games with similar styles coming out for the 360 and PS3 as well)
-- jchenx
Am I the only one who's never been bothered by the uncanny valley effect? Having grown up on video games I can't say I've ever experianced this supposedly common phenomenon, or had any friends say "gee, that's creepy". Actually, I always sort of assumed only older folk felt it. :-)
Laugh at stupidity: mod idiots +1 Funny.
After owning every Nintendo home console I have absoultly no faith in Nintendo to deliver content. Nintendo made alot of noise before the Gamecube came out that it was going to have much better third party support that time around and I was dissapointed. The Wii is ging to cost NZ$500, as early as the begining of 2003 the Gamecube cost NZ$250, there where a few good games but AFAICR by late 2004 EA had stopped releasing its games in NZ. I haven't bought a new GC game since Resident Evil 4.
Alot of Wii type functionallity will be delivered with the Sixaxis control for PS3. From the previews it sounds as though in first person shooters the Wiimote is just used for driving a cursor around the screen as opposed to pointing it directly at a target and the PS3 control can aim like this just fine, and still have more traditional controls for turning and movement.
As I own an Xbox360 I'd like to see it catch on in Japan so it gets more Japanese games, but I doubt it will happen. My guess is that we'll see the same sort of games on the Sony and MS platforms as we did last gen IE: Shooting games on Xbox and more Japanese games on PS2. The difference this time is that Xbox wont have the same graphical advantage, not that that really matters too much, look at the PS2's success.
As for who will win I think PS3 will likely come out on top, just because it will have a broader base of games. I'd say the Wii will be a bit like the Gamecube, and the Xbox360 will be much closer to the PS3 than the Xbox was to the PS2 everywhere except Japan.
I really like my Xbox360 and there are a heap of games I'm looking forward to, but If I want to play Fighting games or Final Fantasy or what ever weird stuff comes out of the land of the rising sun, I'll have to get a PS3.
I have 2 problems with Gears of War (not a flame, just an opinion):
1) I really can't stand 3rd person games. I never get the sense of control that I do from first person games like Half Life and Halo.
2) Being a geek, I want to have some intellectual respect for the character of the "hero" in a game. Gordon Freeman is a physicist. He rules. The Master Chief is blessedly characterless except for a few terse sentences here and there. Gears of War seems to be full of jarheads. Maybe its just me, but I have a hard time playing a dumb meatshield of a character.
My 2 cents...
Gates himself said that he wanted Halo 3 to hit the PS3 launch.
I know a lot of people talked about it when Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within came out. I don't think they used the actual term "uncanny valley", but I had a lot of friends talk about how creepy the movie looked at times. In still-shots, or general action scenes, the movie looked fine. But the more personal and emotional moments, definately felt creepy at times to me and my friends. I still enjoyed the movie, for the most part, so it didn't detract TOO much, but it was certainly there.
Notice how other CG movies like Toy Story or even The Incredibles don't have this problem whatsoever, since the characters are so "cartoony" looking. And in other movies that use CG characters, they're often relegated to non-humans (such as Aslan from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Gollum from The Lord of the Rings). IMHO, I think it'll be a while before we have a movie like FF: Spirits Within, where the entire cast is CG yet photo-realistic.
-- jchenx
It's great that you speak for the gaming community as a whole. Now that we know you don't care about Bioshock, which won three out of four Best Game of E3 awards from the major gaming sites (and runner up on that fourth one), we can move on and lavish praise on the shiny JRPG that presents an effeminite boy protagonist who mighty morphs into a giant robot! Clearly this is a new frontier in gaming!
Darn, you fanboys just can't get over the fact that the Shitbox360 doesn't appeal to the Japanese and have to keep bringing that "fact" up each time. Guess it must be one of those "if you repeat it enough it becomes true" kinds of things....
Sony could deliver a plastic box that plays 8-bit Nintendo games and is filled with dog crap and the Japanese would line up for blocks on release day and gladly pay $1000 for it.
So can Microsoft in the US if they make a Halo game for it.
I would say that so far there simply havn't been all that many games that suffered from it. The effect isn't something that just magically pops up due to advances in graphics, I would say it has far more to do with an imbalance in the presentation, i.e. when you have an almost photorealistic graphic, you'd better also have almost realistic animation, else the result will look like a walking zombie, not like a pretty girl. If the graphics on the other side are far from photorealistic, a bunch of glitches in the animation won't be that much of an issue.
Another thing that plays a heavy role is fine tuing of the animations, raw motion caputuring data gives horrible results (Polar Express), since it simply only captures a subset of the total motion and thus leads to noticable errors. Classic keyframe animation by a good animator however can easily fix these problems, since an animator knows what to look for and how to fix it (Golum), just applying the raw data to the model doesn't do that.
Speaking in terms of gaming, one demo that demonstrated the Uncanny Valley rather well was Heavy Rain, in some moments it just looked horrible, however in others it also looked great. Its the lack of fine-tuning (was all motion captured) that was lacking here and some bugs in the rendering (inner of the mouth to bright) that causes the throuble. Another example is the latest FIFA game, the characters look rather awefull, the polycount is high, but finetuning is again largly lacking, no suprise by how many players they have to model, so the result looks far more creepy than it should. A last generation example would be Riddick, the shading on the human skin was just all wrong and so was the hair, which lead to unpleasent results. The Tiger Woods shown on the PS3 press conference was another example of being deep down in uncanny valley.
We will for sure see some more uncanny valley on PS3 and XBox360, but luckily it is something that can be avoided with some extra effort.
Gears of War has been a very hyped game for the 360 console, but I'm not sure if it really applies in Japan -- at least, as much as Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. I would think that those two RPGs are the bigger games in the East, particularly given the people involved in their production. So far, there are a handful of nice game on the PS3. The big one for me will be Final Fantasy XIII, but I don't see that hitting North America for a couple years yet, as localization for FF games generally takes many months and we've yet to have any indication that FFXIII is anywhere near being close to completion. I'll buy a PS3 when the price comes down. For now, its a redundant system for me. Each system has some exclusives, but overall I don't feel the urge to own both Next-Gen consoles. There are plenty of 360 games to keep me busy and I'm sure the Wii will entertain for a while as well.
3rd person cannot persuade? 4 words: Ghost Recon Advanced WarFighter
They've got to beat Gears of War, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Forza Motorsport 2, and Blue Dragon.
Remember, Sony was the winner of the last round of consoles - that means Microsoft has to beat whatever Sony produces, not the other way around - a crucial difference.
Gears of War has to beat Fall of Man. Bioshock has to beat whatever comes out around the same timeframe (we're talking about a year off). Forza has to contend with a new GT. Blue Dragon has to worry about White Knight Story. And so on and so forth.
Microsoft has a head start and they are doing a good job of supporting it, but just because they have some pretty good looking games coming out does not mean Microsoft will easily overtake SOny if Sony offers games that are even close to equivilent.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
GRAW is a appealing to a very select audience - it's hardly the 'fast action, focus on fun' type of game that Gears of War is attempting to be. The only thing that they might have in common is the camera viewpoint and the fact that they are both for the mature audience.
GRAW is such a slow-paced, unforgiving game that it will annoy any but the most diehard fans of the tactical shooter genre.
Gekido's Lair
Why bother making up numbers when 20 seconds of research shows that you're... well... making up numbers.
US DOD Budget, fiscal 2006: $406 billion
USSR Defense Budget: $70 billion
China Defense Budget: $90.0 billion
NATO Combined Defense Budget: $160 billion
You're already over, right there.
In addition, to further refute this ridiculous comment, both Russia and China spend a higher percentage of their GDP on defense. The US spends 3.7% of GDP, while China spends 4.2% and Russia spends a whopping 12% of GDP on defense.
I know slashdot is the home of a high proportion of America-hating basement dwellers, but this post (completely blind to reality and the possibility that someone might actually take 30 seconds to google the numbers) is a new low.
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