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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 $200 price difference means people want to see better than 360 quality, and unless we get it now there will be some grumbly early adopters."
What's especially interesting is that this, the first game on the Unreal Engine 3 (an engine that supports OS X, Linux, Windows, Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3), is only available for the Xbox 360. I wonder how much that cost Microsoft!
Global symbol "$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?
"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.
Well, if you had the choice of releasing your hugely anticipated game a few months earlier in August or September, or waiting until the week before your number one competitor was releasing their video game console, what would you do?
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
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.
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.
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.
"$300 is a lot of money for a gaming system for most families and it will take years for the PS3 to be $300."
Not from Sony's perspective. As far as Sony is concerned, once the PS3 is out there people will adopt BluRay en masse (ignoring that such an adoption would require most of those people to fork over more for a new HDTV than they just spent on a PS3). Then BluRay discs and players would drop considerably in price due to production numbers and the PS3 becomes a whole lot cheaper to make almost overnight. They can hit $300 within a year with the mass adoption of BluRay and a constantly improving yield rate from Cell chip manufacturing.
I doubt that's going to happen but that's the gamble Sony has made and they're going to keep riding that bet until BluRay is tossed next to BetaMax and MiniDisc on the ash heap of consumer electronics history.
Sony is not completely crazy. It just appears that way because on one small delusional thought in their heads.
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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