Slashdot Mirror
Picking Sides In the Console War
If you're having trouble picking, the reviews are beginning to come in for the PlayStation 3 and the Wii. Chris Morris at CNN offers an analysis of the Wii launch games and some frustrations about the PlayStation 3. Chris Kohler at C|Net offers a side by side comparison of both systems ... and some frustrations about the PS3 controller. Finally, 1up offers a look back at Sony's launches, and a similar look back at Nintendo's launches in an effort to judge how the weekend will go.
Why pick sides, just buy both systems and call it a day.
Wulfram II - Free Online Mutiplayer 3D Tank Shooting Gam
It's never about picking the best system, it's about picking the one that sucks the least.
They're both consoles, they both do the same thing. Neither is completely "better" than the other, but rather that customers have to compare their perceived values? Besides, any Slashdotter that's getting a PS3 has been waiting for the past few days outside their local national chain with 10 bags of Doritos and lifetime supply of delivery pizzas
Don't pick sides, pick games.
Everything else will follow from there.
Or as I heard on Stephen King's "On Writing" (audio book): "It's OK to prick your finger in public, but not to finger your prick."
:P
I'm planning to get a Nintendo Wii after the new year, so keep your fingers to yourself.
I have a, still functioning, Sony Betamax. I have a, still functioning, Sony PS2. I have a, still hasn't set the house on fire, Xbox 360. I would like a Wii.
I don't care who "wins". I just want a machine I can play fun games on.
I don't own stock in any of these companies. I don't work for any of these companies. I have been on the "losing" side of these "wars" before. Just note my admission of owning a Betamax above. When Sony stopped making the players and stopped making the tapes, my machine continued to function quite well. In fact, I still watch my recordings of the original airings of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I watch for the old commercials more than for the show. Those who lived in the Oakland/SF Bay Area in the 1980s will know what I'm talking about when I mention "Paul, from the Diamond Center".
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
This reminds me of a conversation I overheard at a game store the other day. Apparently, this kid had borrowed a PSP game from his friend. The game had a firmware update on it that had failed to install properly. His PSP was absolutely toasted, and wouldn't even boot. The guy behind the counter was explaining to the kid's dad that it would cost almost as much as a new PSP to have Sony fix it.
I wonder how many PS3's will go the Way of the Brick(TM)?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Typical Slashdot dupe, we picked our side months ago! Wii it is!
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
With the FPS kiddies and casual gaming boobs migrating off the PC platform, PC gaming may actually go back to the more complex, cerebral, mature games we used to be able to buy.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
I don't care too much about this "war" either - but that's because I don't spend as much time (or percentage of income) on gaming as I did when I was young.
Sure I didn't own "stock" in Sega when I was 10 - but I had a Master System. To a 10 year old, that's the equivalent of owning a lot of stock, because it's not like you're going to get two consoles. And the value of that stock is very apparent to you when your friends are playing Mario 3 and you're playing some incomprehensible turd (though Shinobi was good..).
People arguing about consoles do have a stake in this. Making it worse, the value of their investment will come down to the number of people who agree and disagree with them (even on a local level, as if your friends have the same system you can trade games). Nobody wants to end up the odd man out with the "loser" console.
I don't care who "wins". I just want a machine I can play fun games on.
Well, you theoretically could play fun games on a 3D0 or Jaguar - but you probably didn't. Consoles that don't "win" sometimes "lose", and don't get any fun games. So if you want to play a console with fun games, then it is relevant to figure out which console is going to win. I don't expect the winners and losers to be so cleanly distinguished that one console will get no support (as has happened before) - but for people who play a lot of games (and spend a lot of money), there's still stakes involved, and thus concern over who wins.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I think george carlin originally said that way back when...I could be mistaken, but I think it was on the "Class Clown" album
Living With a Nerd
It's fine to disagree with Zonk but implying that he's a 10 year old seems a bit trollish to me.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
Video games are supposed to be an escape from reality, like books and movies. To sit and squabble and argue over which one is better just taints the entire experience for me. I am so sick of people picking sides in a war that doesn't need to be fought. I can't wait until all of this launch BS dies down and people can just get back to enjoying what each console has to offer.
Legal yes, it's just not economically feasible for a lot of us. At least not within a short period of time.
It's not like I just shrugged my shoulders and bought another system. Besides, VHS recorders had dropped dramatically in price by the time that happened, so I bought one of those after I found it difficult to buy Betamax tape. It really was no big deal. It's sort of like the situation I'm in now. The PS2 is about to die. I have an investment in the PS2 in the form of games that I continue to play. My sister and I are patiently waiting for the price of the PS2 to drop under $100.00. Then we are going to buy one or two more each as backup systems. If my Betamax had not worked so well, I would have done the same back in the eighties when Betamax machines were suddenly CHEAP!
Yes, the Betamax machine is basically relegated to being a cheap time machine. I rarely pay any attention to the shows I recorded. Most of my attention goes to the old commercials, and old stuff you don't see anymore like the ancient HBO station identifiers.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Just like cars, or cell phones.
Cars are for driving to work. Cell phones are for calling people.
Would you go for the bare minimum on these items? Think about this one. You know that the cheapest one is the best buy...
Check out the CNet comparison. Look at the rankings from the editors vs. from the readers. Whoops, just noticed the article actually links to Wired when it says it links to CNet. No matter, here's the CNet side by side comparison: http://reviews.cnet.com/4321-6464_7-6551960.html?t ag=cnetfd.mt
v s-gamers.html)
Here's how the editors ranked the systems:
1. PS3 (8.8) 2. Xbox 360 (8.4) 3. Wii (8.2)
Here's how the readers ranked the systems:
1. Wii (8.0) 2. Xbox 360 (7.5) 3. PS3 (7.1)
Aside from the full one-point "grade inflation" the readers ranked the systems in exactly the opposite order that the editors did. Is this because the editors are playing on machines they didn't pay for? And with HDTV equipment most users don't have? Is it perhaps related to the relative advertising might these companies are flexing at CNet? Are CNet gamers more casual and fun-oriented compared to more hardcore CNet editors?
Whatever's going on, it looks interesting to me.
-stormin (shameless self-promotion, I covered this discrepancy in my blog yesterday: http://kiriath-arba.blogspot.com/2006/11/editors-
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Come on... that surely comes from the very old joke, "No, nurse, I said prick his boil".
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
Pixels are so boring, and all those colors just confuse me. :-)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
by buying Nintendo stock. I figure anyone who wanted a souped-up PS2 already bought a 360. Those lining up to buy the PS3 would line up to buy socks if they were hyped enough.
Non-gamers and gamers alike are using words like "revolutionary" and "fun" to describe the Wii in every review I've read.
Personally, I already have a PS2, and don't need a PS3 plus. I'd rather have something totally different.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
NBC got the idea for "The Biggest Loser" from home movies your mom sent in.
The very first line of that article confused the hell out of me:
" The Xbox 360 finally has some competition: The PlayStation 3 hits stores (in extremely limited quantities) on November 17, followed two days later by the Nintendo Wii."
Is he using the past tense for future events? Today is the 16th of November. Did that quantum entaglement experiment work and this was our first message from the future? Seriously, what the hell.
As far as I know, the PS3 is only out in Japan and the Wii isn't out anywhere. So right now, as far as I know, game reviewers who were given consoles to test are the only ones who could have possibly played all three and formed an opinion.
Am I mistaken, or do those reader rankings sound like people rating things based on how they hope they'll be, making them no more indicative of anything than all the internet banter that's gone on over the past couple years?
The enemies of Democracy are
They aren't JUST toys to a lot of people on slashdot. A decent percentage of people who post here work in the games industry, thus are very close to this topic. Several of my good friends work for game developers, one works at SoA. The "way the wind blows" is pretty important to them.
Beyond that, what other people buy WILL have an impact on you. If a console fails to achieve marketshare, the 3rd parties will stop supporting them.
Also, many people in the US (and, I'm sure, Japan as well) look on it as a patriotic issue... many Americans want to see US companies do well in what has traditionally been a market not dominated by American console manufacturers.
Finally - I don't see how it's any emptier to be interested in the videogame industry than the traditional software industry, or even sports...
...my position assumes (and you know what happens when you ASS-U-ME don't you?) that you won't buy a system until there ARE GAMES YOU WANT TO PLAY. It also assumes (there's that word again) that there are enough games to justify the expense of the system. That's the biggest reason I won't buy a PS3. I just don't play enough games to make me go crying and begging to my wife for one. There are a LOT of other things I'd rather spend $600.00 on than a game system alone.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Your point about things not always being cheap: I have to disagree there with respect to consumer electronics. Tape players, DVD players, computers, game systems, all get cheaper with time. That's why I had to laugh when I saw a bunch of guys sitting in front of Best Buy yesterday with tents. Those morons (yes, morons) were willing to spend a cold night on cold cement for a game system that WILL drop in price!
Yes, I know, some bigger jackass will actually pay more than $600.00 for the systems on E-bay. Even if the morons double their money it still was not worth it.
Let's see, I saw them at 4:00 PM yesterday. The system will NOT be sold before mid-night tonight. That's thirty-two hours MINIMUM. If they double their money they earn only $18.75 per hour MAXIMUM. The total is less than that if they were there before I saw them. What did I tell you? MORONS!
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
That CNN article is a pretty amusing read, the reason they give that the PS3 is flawed is:
>>
When you bought a PlayStation 2, it was a pretty simple process. You paid the store, took the PS2 home, plugged it in and started playing. Things aren't so simple this time.
Once you've plugged in and configured your PS3, you'll have to update the system software
>>
Which is back to front - with my release day Japanese PS3 to update drivers I just went online, for my release day PS2 I had to phone SCE and have the 1.01 DVD update snail mailed to me!
And don't get me started on the pain and suffering I went though to get a CD with the later HD drivers to replace the initial Japanese HD CD.
At the moment here in Tokyo if you go shopping you can see the war has been lost by Nintendo already, in Akihabara the stores all have playable PS3 setups, at Sofmap yesterday they put up barriers on the pavement and had two members of staff trying to stop people gawping at Ridge Racer blocking the pavement - meanwhile pretty well the only sign of the Wii in the whole of Akihabara is a video monitor outside Asobit playing a six month old video demoing the controller.
If Nintendo could get Final Fantasy (the real thing), and Dragon Quest on the Wii they would have a chance, but without they are doomed to be a distant second in the Japanese market.
Yesterday I was at a press event in Osaka playing the release Wii games, there was not one that approaches the fun of playing Ridge Racer online, and more than once people said to me that they wanted to get out of there as soon as poss to go work on their RidgeRacer ranking:)
And most importantly, forget the fluff pieces in the Japanese media with game producers saying they are looking forward to developing on the Wii, go drinking with a bunch of Japanese developers and all they talk about is the PS3, and the ones not working on it are seriously frustrated.
For people who can't comprehend the difference between SCE and Sony Music, or die hard Pokemon fans, maybe it is hard to accept, but the Next Gen battle was won and lost 18 months ago when SCE made their pitch and Square/Enix-Capcom-Namco-Konami-Sega decided on which platform to concentrate on.
Yes Pokemon/Mario fans will buy the Wii, and good luck to them, the games industry needs a real second player, but personally I'm not interested in Kirby or Mario games, I want Metal Gear, FFXIII, GTHD and VF5 and they all are on the PS3 which is why I queued up for 40 hours to get one, and won't be getting a Wii.
For saying thier just "fucking toys" your willing to spend the top price on yours. GTFO.
Or maybe its because editors are playing on machines they actually have, and the rest are speculative fanboys?
Nahhhh....
Keep in mind, A "Final Fantasy Exclusive" is more valuable to Sony than to Square. Square can and has been going multi-platform.
If Final Fantasy XIII or Kingdom Hearts goes multiplatform it will do little to hurt Squarenix, but will do MASSIVE DAMAGE to Sony.
Ah for craps sake... FFXI != FF. It was a experiment, it failed, Square is moving on. Do you seriously not understand the difference between the core FF series and FFXI? The core series will be a Sony platform exclusive, period, no matter what spinoff's are on other platforms. Look, go back to the original PR shots of the FFXI non public alpha and you'll see loads of the images have a player called MechaPanda.... Doh!!
Final Fantasy 1-2 IV, & V are out for the GBA.
Final Fantasy III - is out for the DS.
Final Fantasy VI has been announced for the GBA.
Final Fantasy Started on the NES, moved to the SNES. then to the Playstation. Final Fantasy VII was the first Sony Exclusive.
There is no reason why Square can't go multiplatform.
Last week I wend to a videogame expo. I got tickets so I could be among those who are lucky to get in 2h earlier than the unwashed masses. Now lets describe the PS3 and the Wii demos:
Wii: Very open stand. multiple consoles, multiple games, free to try, reasonable lines. Lines weren't a problem since you could easly watch the games around you, seeing someone play the wii is much more fun than watching anyone playing on any other console. Once you've seen this, you'll understand.
PS3: Big black enclosed space. huge line. Nothing to see, unless you spend halve your day waiting in line. And that was before the unwashed masses could get in.
Conclusion: If Sony thinks I'm going to wasted my time waiting in a line just to play along in their hype-creation, they can shove their console up their collective lawyer habitat.
Seriously - Of all the readers who submitted scores, how many have actually PLAYED one, let alone OWN one.
Come on, people - they haven't even been released yet. The vast majority of "Reader reviews" are wild-ass "OMG THIS SYSTEM IS GOING TO BE SO AWESOME!!!!!" speculation.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
Why? FF started on the NES. And hell FFVII was originally supposed to be an N64 title.
There is nothing stopping Square from moving FF off Sony, so I wouldn't count on FFXIII being Playstation exclusive until you have it in your hands. No matter what the plans are atm(and we'll presume you don't know them, since your handle here postdates said screens which may or may not exist), they can and have changed in the past.
Also, knowing Square, I'd be surprised if XIII came out any earlier than 2008.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
>>There is no reason why Square can't go multiplatform.
Dear oh dear, there is a huge difference between Square recycling their back catalogue for the umpteenth time on various platforms, and having the latest and greatest FF on anything else than a Sony platform.
If M$ asked nicely (and paid through the nose), Square would release FFVII for XBox360. And?
If you don't understand why the FF core series can only be released on Sony platforms (and yes that is new releases - for the terminally stupid), you need to spend a while researching why, instead of trying to explain the history of Square to someone who was there when it happened:)
Seriously, if you think FFXI on the 360 = Final Fantasy then you are a complete knob, have been duped by M$ and deserve to own a 360 - go play Madden or something...
I suspect this comment is a joke.
:)
Note: at the time of posting you can't (for love or money) buy either system and call it a day
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Why? FF started on the NES.
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You don't say? Is it free internet day at the trailor park or something, what is it with these inane posts?
Look I won't spell it out here, cos I'll get smacked again, but anyone who spent 30 minutes reading back issues of the Japan Times would be able to puzzle out why no core FF game will be on anything but a Sony Platform.
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No matter what the plans are atm(and we'll presume you don't know them, since your handle here postdates said screens which may or may not exist)
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Again, if you don't know who I am, which after all means you know as much about the history of Square as you think you do, have a look at some of my past posts, follow a few links, and learn.
No core FF on 360 or Wii. Period.
That's somewhat strange, considering that people are already playing the Wii and not getting sick of it after 10 minutes.
In my experience, the Wii is the only console ever that got lots of non-players excited. Suddenly, people come to me and ask me about games. These are people who never held a controller in their hands. Where I live (in Europe), a major electronics retailer is doing a midnight sale for the Wii. As far as I can remember, that has never happened in this country. Not for the PS2, not for the 360. The interest in the Wii is kind of astonishing.
Good luck with your shorting, though.
I think I can help here: Square moved from Nintendo to Sony when Sony introduced a system with larger storage capacities (the PS with CDs). They remained with Sony because the PS2 was pretty much killing the other two consoles during the last console gen.
With the current generation, two of these things aren't how they used to be.
Sorry I will be wrong the loop cannot be avoided
The best you can do is alter them slightly but it breaked causality so it was possibly worse than it was going to have been.
Go get laid !
In about a month, an improbable experiment about sending a message back in time will go terribly wrong.
The message will fail to be sent in the past but the entanglement will be enforced.
As a result, the 42 bits message supposed to be the future reference will stay in the present, but the rest of the universe will be accordingly time shifted in the past to compensate.
The universe will keep running CRC checks on the 42 bits, and error correcting algorithms which are based on the universe's 'current present' assumptions.
Soon enough, the ligh beam will scatter delocalizing the CRC error fixing routine that will spread *faster* than the speed of light as the universe hops to maintain other natural entanglements (there are many of them, in fact most particles, but fortunately not all, are entangled to their invisible counterpart (the ones beyond light-reach that were early set appart during the fast expansion) that seem to be violated. We know this because we would have known this 30 years later).
Anyway, those future console reviews are not an isolated case, it was just more obvious to most of us but many more, less noticeable discrepancies are happening right now.
The abnormalities will increase dramatically as we catch up with the experiment's date next month, expect a lot of deja-vu or even dupes on slashdot..what ? there are already ? well I told you ! I'm just too slow on this post and the clock ticks !
The universe *will* heal, this is also known; so this isn't the armaggedon, but we will have to learn to deal with time loops and anachronisms. The hardest part will be to detect and avoid the causality breakages (known as reality ghosts or more technicaly "Link Induced Excluded Simultaneity"). Bush will use it at its advantage to try to be reelected claiming experience on the matter.
The time loops are a bitch, there will be a way out of them so I'll post about it as soon as I get the procedure, but if I can't make it, you slashdotters should stop worrying about new consoles and make sure you get laid before we hit the loop mark.
There is no reason why Square CAN'T go multiplatform to make the most money in this gen.
'nuff said
No, that generation has passed. There's a reason why the Camery is the number one selling passenger car in the United States, followed by the Honda Accord, then the Honda Civic, and the Chevy Impala is number four (as of 2005)
First off, I said "many", not "everyone" look at it as a patriotic issue.
I've seen literally thousands of blog posts and comments (many on Slashdot) that assert that Japanese gamers aren't buying the 360 because they "hate American products". This is, of course, not true since many US products are successful there. But MS/Xbox fanboys make this complaint alot, and they also assert the aforementioned "patriotism" as one reason they like the Xbox.