Game Industry Folks Siding With the Wii

Gamasutra's semi-regular feature taking the pulse of folks in the game industry turns its attention this week to the PS3 and Wii launches. From the comments submitted to the site, it seems that many industry vets are generally more excited about the Wii than with Sony's offering. From the article: "'Definitely a Wii (already pwii-ordered). The price point of the PS3 and the lack of enticing launch titles makes me as interested in a PS3 as I am interested in getting a root canal.' — Ryan Conlon, Gearbox Software. 'I am buying a Wii because Sony is too arrogant, from their dev tools to the price point.' — Ed O'Tey, Electronic Arts. 'Wii — pre-ordered. I applaud the attempt to expand and explore game interaction with the Wii. I will not be purchasing a PS3.' — Jim Perkins, EA Canada"

Comments

Yes

[Xiph]

It probably has something to do with Nintendo trying to do things in a new way, while Sony/MS are "just" doing the things they do better. Novelty and originality does count.

Re:Yes

[PieSquared]

On the same note, the 360 and PS3 are both pretty much a graphics upgrade. Which means two things, first that (if you have a HDTV, which I don't) it'll look prettier. Second, there is allot more effort, and time, and money, going into making a game for them. If people thought there was too much of a problem with sequels instead of innovation last generation, it'll be worse today: for the 360 and PS3.

With the Wii, though, Nintendo is pretty much forcing developers to innovate at least a little, in order to properly use the controller. If I want a graphics update, I'll get a new card for my PC. I go to a council for a distinctly different experience then a PC, usually based on the controller, since that is the real difference. And now, the Wii makes the controller even *more* different then the PC, which to me is an even greater reason to play. That and it doesn't cost *that* much money.

Re:Yes

[Proud like a god]

"I go to a council for a distinctly different experience"

How about just going to a console? ;-)

Re:Yes

[interiot]

On the same note, the 360 and PS3 are both pretty much a graphics upgrade.

Actually, the Xbox's network service has a definite step forward, better even than what PC's have (other than not being free). It's got 1) integrated IM that works the same across all games, 2) seamless brain-dead demos and xbox live games, 3) worldwide leaderboards in just about every game, 4) achievements and gamerscore.

And if you can pretty much get the controller for the PC via the Gyration mouse. http://youtube.com/watch?v=piEz74G6WPA http://youtube.com/watch?v=HUGabGDLg8g

Re:Yes

[Total_Wimp]

Novelty and originality does count.

Yes, but not as much as you may think.

-I love Belgium beers. The U.S. buys Budweiser.
-I loved Firefly. The world loves Desperate Houswives.
-I have art over my mantlepiece. The suberbanites put a large mirror there.
-I love that little place down the street. The U.S. loves Applebees.

It really doesn't matter what you think of the Wii. The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii.

I wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that origionality or quality actually "count" in the grand scheme of things. But that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy your Wii anyway.

(I would caution those who champion the Wii to take a closer look at what they're doing. They're saying it's great before they've even seen a unit in person. Some guy in another thread insinuated that PS3 purchasers were acting like sheep. Proclaining the Wii as "superior" without haveing every played it is absolutely no better)

TW

Re:Yes

[Phoenix00017]

I would argue that it's a bit more than a graphics upgrade, especially on the part of the PS3. The Cell architecture will allow much more advanced AI and physics, among other things. This has the potential, if the developers take advantage of it appropriately, to really make some new offerings in gaming. We're seeing PCs take the same path with the introduction of the Physx physics card and a dedicated AI chip. The other big step is pure processing power harvested as the ability to present many more entities on screen. Look at Assassin's Creed or Dead Rising as games that have started to use crowd effects to great advantage.

Re:Yes

[DragonWriter]

It probably has something to do with Nintendo trying to do things in a new way, while Sony/MS are "just" doing the things they do better. Novelty and originality does count.

"Novelty" often counts a lot more two insiders than to the buying public, which is one reason that in entertainment fields in general, "critical acclaim" and "commercial success" are only occasionally found in the same place.

Re:Yes

[soft_guy]

Some guy in another thread insinuated that PS3 purchasers were acting like sheep. Proclaining the Wii as "superior" without haveing every played it is absolutely no better

It is a little better. The people who are twirly eyed over the PS3 do so based on three characters: P S 3. The people who are twirly eyed over the Wii have been following the tech news on the various consoles, read probably multiple articles and even hands on reviews on the subject.

Also, I suspect that it will hard to buy either a PS3 OR a Wii this Winter Shopping Orgy (Christmas). Both companies will be able to sell everything they can bring to market, although perhaps the scalping on the Wii will only be 50% as bad as on the PS3.

Re:Yes

[GhaleonStrife]

There's only one problem. There's Wii kiosks in most EBs. There have been for about a week or so now. Maybe longer. PS3 kiosks? None, to my (Fairly limited) knowledge. Granted, I don't care too much for any of them right now. I'll wait for a killer app to show up that surpasses Gears. If Gears is not beaten in 6 months, I'm getting a 360.

Re:Yes

[Gr8Apes]

I think we're going to be seeing more of this with multi-core CPUs. There's no reason to have a special physics chip when that could just be an addition to a core. Imagine a multi-core gaming CPU with a physics and graphics core built in, along with the RAM cache to go with the graphics core, for the price of a video card alone.

This would probably come out of a genesis of cheap graphics/CPU systems built for business.

Couple this with a Flash based card or other persistent memory technology which plugs into device, and you'll have uncopyable and relatively unhackable media that doesn't even need to install.

How, you ask? Boot off the game card itself. Include the entire OS since you only need a small part including drivers, which come down to about 4 companies at this point which all have unified drivers: AMD/ATI, nVidia, Creative, and Broadcom based network chips - heck, have the reader device provide audio and network connectivity, and you can eliminate 2 sources of uncertainty. Doesn't seem too hard. You could even have a small boot section that decrypts the rest of the OS. That would create a console out of your PC.

Re:Yes

[SetupWeasel]

Yeah, but Belgum beers, Firefly, art, and that little place suck.

We're talking about the Wii here. Stay on topic.

Re:Yes

[Vanders]

Include the entire OS since you only need a small part including drivers, which come down to about 4 companies at this point which all have unified drivers: AMD/ATI, nVidia, Creative, and Broadcom based network chips

I know it's tempting to believe that's the case, but trust me when I say that's not even close to being true. Even if you're only including consumer desktop and laptop machines made in the last twelve months.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii.

That demonstrates a difference in supply, not demand. Demand for the PS3 can't really be measured at this point, aside from the vague statement that it is "bigger than the supply." Since the supply of the Wii will be much larger -- by some reports a full order of magnitude larger -- the demand would have to be absurdly high to result in huge lines and skyrocketing eBay prices.

To make a similarly meaningless statement that skews the other way: On Monday morning, it is extremely likely that more people in North America will own a Wii than will own a PS3. This is just as accurate as your claim, but it similarly fails to convey any useful information for comparing Wii and PS3 popularity.

Not that I'm saying the Wii will be more popular than the PS3. I'm just saying we have nothing to base a comparison on at this point, and nobody will until supply for both consoles is to the point where you'd expect a typical North American video game store to have at least one of each in stock at any given time.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a little better. The people who are twirly eyed over the Wii do so based on eight characters: N i n t e n d o. The people who are twirly eyed over the PS3 have been following the tech news on the various consoles, read probably multiple articles and even hands on reviews on the subject.

Re:Yes

[SetupWeasel]

It is a little better. The people who are twirly eyed over the Wii do so based on eight characters: R e l i a b l e. The people who are twirly eyed over the PS3 are complete masochists that likely enjoy putting their own testicles in a vice.

Re:Yes

[kthejoker]

Uhh - that's because the letters "PS2" have already proven themselves in the console market. Sony doesn't really need a lot of hands on reviews or word of mouth - they've got an entrenched product already.

Re:Yes

[jotok]

I wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that origionality or quality actually "count" in the grand scheme of things. But that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy your Wii anyway.

Not to be a pedant, but history is littered with non-innovative garbage that nobody wanted to buy. The only question is whether or not Wii actually is good enough to overcome Sony's hype. After all, if innovation and quality were non-issues then we'd still be playing Vectrex.

Re:Yes

[tiocsti]

I'm personally looking forward to the ps3, and not the wii. It comes down to the games to me, and the ps3 launch titles have atleast 2 games I want to play (vs 0 on the xbox 360 even now, and I havent heard of anything I particularly wanna play on the wii).

I'm not going to pay 1500$ to play those 2 games, but once the creation of a media event via artificial scarcity ends, I will be looking to buy one.

The two games are mgs4 and dmc4, just the sort of games I like to play...

Re:Yes

[elrous0]

In his defense, the "little place" he's referring to is a brothel. And I prefer it to an Applebees too.

-Eric

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

[quote]The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii.[/quote]

Of course not. Sightings of the PS3 are about as seldom as bigfoot. (Rare, and generally associated with badly washed men prone to hysteria.) They actually managed to produce more than a handful of the Wii for release..

Re:Yes

[ehrichweiss]

"You could even have a small boot section that decrypts the rest of the OS."

I'm guessing you haven't heard of the "bootloader" in terms of removing copy protection? They even use them on some of the best smartcard technology out there so it'd be quite the challenge to get this to remain a viable option.

Re:Yes

[Kjella]

The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii.

Maybe it's because there's a terribly short supply? Try looking at the shipping projections Sony used to be throwing around - the truth is, the only people who will have a PS3 are the ones who preordered early, spent forever in line or a fortune on eBay. You think Sony is happy their market is the $1000 console buyers? This is like LotR was playing for three nights, then black-out. The lines would be full, the eBay prices would be legendary. Good for business? I doubt it.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad both MGS4 and DMC4 aren't launch titles and most likely won't be seen till near or the end of next year. But at least this'll give you more time to save.

Re:Yes

[swalters1]

-I love Belgium beers. The U.S. buys Budweiser. -I loved Firefly. The world loves Desperate Houswives. -I have art over my mantlepiece. The suberbanites put a large mirror there. -I love that little place down the street. The U.S. loves Applebees.

>All beer sucks, I drink cider. >Firefly was good, but Max Headroom was better. (yeah old school scifi) >I have both >I prefer my kitchen, and applebees is worse than Denny's
I like what I've seen the Wii do so far, and I love what the 360 and the PS3 is capable off. And in the end I'll probably have a Wii and a PS3, but like the critics I'm concerned about launch titles and I'm not the "have to have it this moment" type anyway, so I get time to sit back and watch and listen to reviews and eventually go to a friends house and try it out. We all know that it takes at least 6 months to a year for a game system to reach it's peak performance levels, so what you're seeing on the PS3 now is mainly ports from the X360.. which means X360 graphics... I'm looking forward to FFXIII to see what a PS3 can really do.
Why do I like the Wii? Finally a console system gets that putting aiming in an FPS on that tiny stick is lame... (probably why I only play FPS's on the PC...and Halo is not the BEST FPS EVER...sorry.) I like that they are trying something new, but if I'll wait until I can play one without intteruption for a few days, with some Gamefly titles and then make my decision. For all we know, this could just be a fad, and in the end they'll end up releasing a "normal" controller for the system. (Don't give me the... if it isn't programed to use it garbage.. you can program these things to do whatever you want.. especially the Wii which has an updatable kernel....yes virginia there is *nix.)
What I don't like about the Wii: It's nintendo... that's like the Mr Rodgers of gaming. With rare exception Nintendo has proven that it's more concerned with being popular with parental organizations than with gamers. Fortunately, the market shifted and I hope that Nintendo did to. That 18-34 bracket is the money now, not the 28 to 45 parents that use to dominate the trade.
What I like about the PS3: It's graphics are amazing, it's cinimatics are transparent for games that were written specifically for it. It's fast, it doesn't studder, ... did I mention is pretty? And yes, to get the best bennifits you'll need an HD LCD or PLASMA display, and you'll need a PSP for future titles that are "group" play.
What I don't like: The system is going to be bogged down with lots of DRM crap that the MPAA made them put in with the Blu-Ray... It shouldn't effect the games too much, but just think about what happens to a PC that has too many background tasks going on, eventually it catches up. No vibration controller, but the tilt won't let you have one anyway, unless you seperate the halfs... like the Wii, which has both. I don't like the price, but hey it's the rough equivilant of a Nvidia 7950 so I can see the price point, and eventually it will get cheaper for Sony to make, and thus, cheaper for us to buy. (and Yes they will lower the price.. they'll have to... cause no one will pay $650 for a PS3 when they could pay $650 for the PS4 with the Nvidia CUDA processors and Cell2....hey I didn't say it would happen fast)
But you're right TW, until you've had a chance to sit down and kick off a few brats at Best Buy or are lucky enough to find someone who did "have to have it now" you really can't judge. I said earlier that Halo is not the best FPS ever made, in fact from my point of view, it's boring and has poor controls, but I like a very specific type of game. I have friends who think Mario Sunshine was the best platforrmer ever...wouldn't know.. not a big fan of Mario or platformers...
I guess what I'm saying is, in the end it comes down to which system is going to offer what you want, and like to play. If it cost $650 to get the stuff you like to play, or only $299, you'll buy what "fits" you best.

Re:Yes

[Gilmoure]

But...what if I just like to play with myself? None of that network stuff matters.

Re:Yes

[hal2814]

"It really doesn't matter what you think of the Wii. The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii."

Only because Wii has more units available. Right now we know nothing of the true demand for a PS3. We just know that there's demand for more than 200,000 units in the US. Given the eBay pricing, we may also know that the demand is significantly higher but we still don't know by how much. Sales could crap out early but with a small hard core fanbase. On the other hand, sales could chug well into the millions given an ample supply. We really don't know yet.

For a person that chides someone for jumping to conclusions for how good the Wii will be, you sure do seem to jump to your own conclusions on the PS3's overall demand.

Re:Yes

[MikeFM]

And people twirly eyed over Wii do so based on what exactly? (Besides the three, very lame characters, W I I.) I personally think the Wii will be cool but that the PS3 will be cooler. I think both units are over priced for their target market but that each will sell plenty of units to their diehard fans and more units later when the prices drop.

Besides their interesting controller what is there to be interested about the Wii? Why should I play it other than my Gamecube? If I'm going to shell out bucks for a console I want the most powerful one so that seems to be a PS3. I've seen plenty of articles on all the consoles and I've yet to see anything even try to claim that the Wii will be anywhere as powerful as the PS3 or even the XBox 360. It has a controller that may or may not be innovative but such things are easily copied if they work well - the PS3 already borrowed some of the motion tracking stuff and I'm sure they're ready to borrow more if needed. I haven't been a fan of many Nintendo games since the N64 - Gameboy offerings left me wanting although there were a few games I liked. Meanwhile Playstation has thousands of available games and dozens that I really like.

When the prices drop I might buy a Wii for party games if they do well in those like the Gamecube did. Otherwise I don't see what there is to be interested in.

My one bitch about the PS3 so far.. are they really making you buy adapters to save from PS1/PS2 titles? C'mon guys it has a fricken 60GB hdd. I was mad enough that I got a PS2 with a hdd and it wouldn't let me save directly the the hdd.

Re:Yes

[feepness]

(if you have a HDTV, which I don't)

You are not the target market. Call us when you get one.

Re:Yes

[drakaan]

You must have missed that article a week or two ago where WalMart sold out all of it's online preorders in 2 minutes (or the one before that where Amazon? shut down it's preorder system online way ahead of schedule).

People are already excited about it...the major news outlets are all shouting "PS3!!!" because Sony is a big name, and the cry across the internet is "Wii!!!", because people have seen the demos and the controller and the launch titles and the price.

Long lines are one thing, but you only get to sell as many PS3s as you have blue lasers. Having people wait in long lines *and* actually be able to buy what they're waiting for will be a big factor, I think.

Re:Yes

[the_tsi]

I don't really care about any next-gen consoles, but I'd say there's more Wii fans that are twirly eyed over five letters: M-A-R-I-O. or Z-E-L-D-A. or S-A-M-U-S. Videogame zealots love their franchises.

Re:Yes

[vertinox]

It really doesn't matter what you think of the Wii. The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii.

From most reports, large retailers only have gotten 5-10 PS3s for a store, whereas the Wii shows up in 25-50 quantities off the truck.

This is mostly because Nintendo has no problem with the Wii supply because its fairly common hardware, whereas the PS3 has to deal with all new fab production facilities.

Re:Yes

[wolff000]

"Which means two things, first that (if you have a HDTV, which I don't) it'll look prettier."

This is something I hear people repeating over and over that is completely untrue. I have a 15+ year old TV from a hotel and my 360 looks great on it. I admit, it would look better on a plasma but even on the old TV it looks ten times better than my Xbox. So many of my friends told me I wasted money on the 360 since I didn't have HD and once they saw it they ate their words. I know I'm not getting the full "experince" using iton an old TV but it still looks better than the last generation console on the same TV. Back to the topic. The only reason I bought the 360 was for specific games. I didn't see any games on the PS3 that made me really want to play and the high price tag didn't help at all. The Wii however has some games that really look like a lot of fun and the back catalog of games makes me smile just thinking about it. The controller puts it over the top for me. I don't know how often I have found myself yanking the controller one direction or the other even though moving did nothing for my gameplay. Integrating movement is genius and I can't wait to play. Although I won't be getting one at launch I'm going to Europe instead. Yes I know I can't go to Europe on 300 bucks but it is 300 more I will have to spend while I'm there.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha, so you're saying that the target market is the 5% of people who have an HDTV * the 25% or so of those who play games? good luck selling that one.

Re:Yes

[7Prime]

If that's Sony's strategy, it's the stupidest, and most arrogant business strategy to date, seeing as though the HDTV adoption rate is still pretty low (and not expected to increase drastically for the next few years), and the current figures are only about 15% of TV owners. People yell and screem bloody murder when Microsoft releases an OS upgrade that will only run on the top 75% of currently owned PCs, and Sony's gunning for the top 15%!!!

Re:Yes

[nschubach]

I'd argue to say that most people have read less about the Wii than has been read about the PS3/360. There are all kinds of fun technical docs and specs on the PS3 and 360's processor architecture trying to find out which one is more powerful, etc.

The only thing you get with Wii reading is a bunch of people all shouting (the best they can in text), "Wiiiii!". Most people fail to see that you are basically buying a GameCube with a new controller. Very little of the system has changed except the case and controller. While this isn't a bad thing, it's definately not a step forward as far as technology is concerned. The Wii is kind of like introducing a new version of Windows 2000 without a new file system or kernel, calling it XP and giving it colorful window borders...oh, damn.

You will have those that say graphics alone don't make the game fun, and I'll agree, but graphics can do alot for the user, playability, eye-strain, immersion and all that jazz.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I go to a council for a distinctly different experience then a PC

In my building going to council is very much like running a (Windows) PC: nothing gets fixed, everyone is blaming everyone else, they're constantly trying to limit what you can do with your property and they keep trying to increase the monthly maintenance fee.

Re:Yes

[Ford Prefect]

I would caution those who champion the Wii to take a closer look at what they're doing. They're saying it's great before they've even seen a unit in person.

Maybe they've been swayed by the vastly superior advertising?

Re:Yes

[rlwhite]

Then your Wii will give you the most pleasure, but I suggest you get out more.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

The prices on eBay are already legendary.

Pop quiz:

You are marketing a new console. The trade press has basically concluded that it is a dog. Your marketting budget is several million dollars. How much is it worth to buy back the first unit off eBay for a newsworthy price?

Re:Yes

[OSS_ilation]

True. It's like politics. PS3 people are voting on the symbol after a person's name, and Wii people are looking for progressive change (either in affordability or interface innovation). There's a risk with the Wii position, naturally, but the payoff could be huge (for Nintendo, obviously, but also for the gamer and the industry too). Besides, it seems that if you buy a PS3 these days, you get shot.

Re:Yes

[Total_Wimp]

I played a PS3 at Target last night. It was cool, but not revolutionary. Perhaps the only real revolutionary thing about it is all the stuff that's not a game (Blu-Ray, wireless, 1080p)

TW

Re:Yes

[Thansal]

yup, playing with your Wii is deffinatly the best thing to do if you like playign with your self.

Re:Yes

[Jesterboy]

Or better yet, why not get the best of both worlds with a consulate?

Re:Yes

[Ogive17]

It really doesn't matter what you think of the Wii. The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii.

Yes, because Nintendo planned ahead and will have plenty of units available for sale.

I think you are mistaking launch success with limited demand. We'll see which console sells more units.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Cell architecture will allow much more advanced AI and physics"

Where are the benchmarks to demonstrate this?

"The other big step is pure processing power harvested as the ability to present many more entities on screen. Look at Assassin's Creed or Dead Rising as games that have started to use crowd effects to great advantage."

Capcom has stated that they only used a single core for Dead Rising. According to the Xenon eval at Ars this provides less FLOPS and MOPS than a 2.0GHz P4. Amazing what can be done with 1999 tech.

Re:Yes

[Alef]

Then your Wii will give you the most pleasure, but I suggest you get out more.

Only on slashdot, "getting out more" equates to playing multiplayer games online...

Re:Yes

[slashbob22]

something in it will make _me_ look inane

I think you misspelled insane.

Re:Yes

[Overly Critical Guy]

The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii.

Are you purposely misinterpreting this? The lines are long because availability is so incredibly limited. People want to resell these things on eBay to make money off of hardcore fans.

The reason you won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii is because you'll be able to just walk up to a shelf and pick up a Wii! I hereby proclaim that you will see Wiis flying off the shelves on Sunday and beating the PS3 to a bloody pulp by December in sales.

I would caution those who champion the Wii to take a closer look at what they're doing. They're saying it's great before they've even seen a unit in person

I've seen one in person. I've played it. Those who were at E3 played it. There's a reason the press is so Wii-crazy right now. Just wait until you try one...especially Zelda.

Re:Yes

[Chris Burke]

and the current figures are only about 15% of TV owners.

And what portion of them have newer 720p TVs as opposed to older 1080i, for which the PS3 will helpfully downscale their games to 480p? A friend of mine brought this up as a reason why the ps3 continued to not interest him. I hadn't realized being part of the 85% without HDTV at all... but I wonder what portion of that 15% Sony has actually carved out for themselves?

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

(I would caution those who champion the Wii to take a closer look at what they're doing. They're saying it's great before they've even seen a unit in person. Some guy in another thread insinuated that PS3 purchasers were acting like sheep. Proclaining the Wii as "superior" without haveing every played it is absolutely no better)

I agree. I remember back when the XBox and the GC were weeks away from launch. Everyone praised the Gamecube for not having a noisy, clunky hard drive that'd interrupt quiet parts in suspenseful video games like the XBox was going to have.

Come to find out, the sound of the GC drive loading the next scene in Resident Evil was exactly that: loud, obnoxious, and distracting.

Re:Yes

[Chess_the_cat]

"It really doesn't matter what you think of the Wii. The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii."

No shit. There are 4 million Wiis ready to go as opposed to 400k PS3s. So us Nintendo fanboys get to sleep in with out girlfriends and still pick up our console of choice.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

-I love Belgium beers. The U.S. buys Budweiser.
-I loved Firefly. The world loves Desperate Houswives.
-I have art over my mantlepiece. The suberbanites put a large mirror there.
-I love that little place down the street. The U.S. loves Applebees.


The iPod exists, but some people will pay more money for a brown Zune. *shudder

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

An "autographed" poster of Mario is not considered art!

Re:Yes

[Total_Wimp]

So us Nintendo fanboys get to sleep in with out girlfriends and still pick up our console of choice.

I know what you were trying to say, but you gotta admit that typo is pretty funny :-)

TW

Re:Yes

[CODiNE]

(I would caution those who champion the Wii to take a closer look at what they're doing. They're saying it's great before they've even seen a unit in person. Some guy in another thread insinuated that PS3 purchasers were acting like sheep. Proclaining the Wii as "superior" without haveing every played it is absolutely no better)

I don't see why you should assume nobody has played it. There was a Wii demo at the local GameStop two days ago (In Salem Oregon of all places) there's got to be others out there already. I handed my license over to the guy at the counter and he handed me the wand. I played Excite Truck for fifteen minutes, it was awesome. It nearly felt like I was actually DRIVING one of these things. The physical movement it requires really pulls you into the action better than a D-pad does. Although it scared my wife enough that she refused to touch it. Heh. Personally as someone who grew up riding dirt bikes it was FUN. Sounds bizarre but some Wii games are actually going to scare some of those "non gamers" that it's aimed at. Regardless, when they see how much fun everyone else is having eventually they'll have to give it a try.

The Wii is awesome, and I have tried it.

Re:Yes

[justaj]

Wrong. The mouse he is using only detects movement along the X and Y axis whereas the Wii remote detects X,Y,Z as well as acceleration.

Re:Yes

[bitwiz]

You're forgetting Nintendo's track record and the fact that Nintendo is the only one of the three actually making money on consoles and games.

Re:Yes

[Fonce]

I agree: even titles that were for the first iteration of the Xbox look better on the 360 (see: Halo 2). And, since I use mine as a DVD player on that TV, I know that it puts out a hell of picture for not being a dedicated player. Perhaps it's just the native component cables that make it that much better, maybe it's the DVD software itself, but it's better and by a wide margin. As far as video game consoles as DVD players go, it's top-notch. The PS2 makes an awful DVD player, the Xbox isn't much better (although any improvement is completely lost due to the fact that you had to buy a dongle to make it work [without hacking it]) and the 360 is, in my opinion, actually respectable.

Re:Yes

[Total_Wimp]

Did Sony lose money on the PS2?

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, Sony essentially promised us the same thing with the PS2. It sounds to me like their marketing strategy is, "hope they don't realize that it's the game programmers job to design the AI." Just because the cell processor can handle a lot of AI calculations at once, doesn't mean the game designers won't just write AI in the canonical 2 steps:

1. Run toward the player.

2. Attack.

The same goes for physics too, at least with the technology we have today.

Re:Yes

[Wdomburg]

There's a lot more than "novelty and originality" in play for all your examples:

-I love Belgium beers. The U.S. buys Budweiser.

Belgium beer is hardly novel or original. It may be better, on average, but that's another issue entirely. More importantly, domestic beer is cheap.

-I loved Firefly. The world loves Desperate Houswives.

Firefly is a lovely show. On the other hand, it's not particularly accessible (harder to start watching if you missed the first episodes) and suffered from the boneheaded decision to show the episodes out of order. Not to mention that Fox is the most cancel-happy network on the face of the earth. :)

-I have art over my mantlepiece. The suberbanites put a large mirror there.

I know far more people with art on their walls than mirrors. Not that I think aesthetic taste is a particularly good indicator of the gaming market.

-I love that little place down the street. The U.S. loves Applebees.

More importantly you know about the little place down the street. In this case, since we're dealing with three nationally known brands, I'd say the situation is more like Applebee's vs Chili's vs TGI Friday's than Applebee's vs the little place down the street.

I would caution those who champion the Wii to take a closer look at what they're doing. They're saying it's great before they've even seen a unit in person. Some guy in another thread insinuated that PS3 purchasers were acting like sheep.

I generally try to avoid getting into debates about what's "better", because ultimately it's a matter of taste. One person may be more interested in a novel controller scheme. Another might want the absolute best graphics money can buy. Someone else might be interested in a particular game or genre that's strong on one of the consoles.

That doesn't stop me from thinking that Sony serious misjudged the market (and their production capacity) this round, or that Nintendo has a good chance of expanding the market by offering a more unique product at a more affordable price point.

Re:Yes

[yarbo]

I have a 15+ year old TV from a hotel

I've heard of stealing the towels before, but I never thought about the TV...

Re:Yes

[VGPowerlord]

So have the letters "Nintendo" in case you've forgotten. That still didn't save the N64 or Gamecube.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Only on slashdot, "getting out more" equates to playing multiplayer games online..."

Sorta, it means goint to Zul'Gurub instead of Molten Core.

Re:Yes

[rjung2k]

"And people twirly eyed over Wii do so based on what exactly?"

Er, actually playing the darn thing, maybe? I've played it several times in the last week at various GameStop stores.

Re:Yes

[Jesus_666]

I would argue that it's a bit more than a graphics upgrade, especially on the part of the PS3. The Cell architecture will allow much more advanced AI and physics, among other things.

So it's an upgrade to graphics and the scripted pseudo-AI used in the games. Seriously, I don't see the Physx and related technologies as much more than prettification devices. As long as stuff like this is used for particle effects and the like it's, well, eye candy. In other words, worse than completely irrelevant - it siphons off developer time that could have been used for better gameplay.

Once they show me a game that really relies on real-time physics calculation for more than mere effects I might be intersted. Fluid dynamics would be especially interesting. But until then, well, why the fsck should I waste my money on something that merely enables more effects?


I've stopped being impressed by video game techology a while ago. We have raytracing hardware but no OpenRT games (and yes, OpenRT looks more interesting to me than NVidia's latest GPU with 4096 parallel rendering pipelines. And even then, technological innovation === the development of more graphics efects. Heck, the same applies to pretty much anything that happens in the video game world. I've been sick of it whan Doom 3 came out and I'm still sick of it.


I think that's the reason I became a retrogamer in the first place: I don't see a reason to play wer games because they're mostly clones of old games with prettier graphics. And the interesting ones are not even as fun as the originals because they skimped on the QA (Gothic 3 being a prime exmple - not that Gothic 2 was cleaner when it came out).

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.steampowered.com/

Re:Yes

[AArmadillo]

Two problems with this. First, is Amdahl's law. Colloquially, Amdahl's law debunks the fallacy that if one woman can have a baby in nine months, then nine women can have a baby in one month. Let's say the average game has 75% code that is parallelizable. Quite a feat, to accomplish that. Then by Amdahl's law, you would see a maximum speedup of 2.9 for 8 processors over one processor, assuming all processors were equal (hint: on the cell, 7 of the cores are just fancy FPUs). To compare, you would see a speedup of exactly 2 for a three processor system. A 45% increase in performance for 266% more cores is not a particularly good tradeoff, and this again is assuming that all cores are created equal.

Then, of course, there is memory bandwidth. The Cell has one memory bus to serve eight cores. In addition, local memory bandwidth for read in the Cell is 16MB/s, from Sony's own slides. Thus Sony recommends (on the next slide) to not read from local memory, but to write out to main memory and read from that. So eight cores are going to be constantly contending for the main memory bus. That is a horrible situation in hardware if I've ever seen one.

Re:Yes

[Mad Marlin]

The Wii is the first game console I have even been interested in since the Sega 32X expansion for the Genesis. And I want someone to figure out how to hook those controllers to the PC!

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you misspelled inane.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's got 1) integrated IM that works the same across all games, 2) seamless brain-dead demos and xbox live games, 3) worldwide leaderboards in just about every game, 4) achievements and gamerscore.

And which of those features required all new, more powerful hardware?

Re:Yes

[tourvil]

Very little of the system has changed except the case and controller. While this isn't a bad thing, it's definately not a step forward as far as technology is concerned.

I really don't want to jump into the fanboy pissing contest here, but there is certainly a technological step forward in the Wii controller, if only minor ones in the graphics department.

Microsoft and Sony chose to make large steps forward in the graphics/processing areas with minor steps forward with the controller. Nintendo chose to make large steps forward with the controller with minor steps forward in the graphics/processing areas.

That's really how it breaks down, which is why it annoys me when people say it's "basically just a gamecube with a new controller". Well that's sort of true, but then the Xbox 360 and PS3 are just an Xbox and PS2 with a new processor/graphics card.

So why don't we all just drop the console fanboy talking points...

Re:Yes

[pembo13]

Cool sig

Re:Yes

[dockthepod]

You are confused with some of your figures. Each SPU has access to 256K of local cache. This is very very fast memory... no misses. They can't directly access main memory, so there isn't really contention. However, the programming model is more complicated. Nothing console devs can't handle ;) The 16MB/s figure (if that's correct, don't remember exactly...) is related to reading VRAM (sony confusingly calls this local memory) from the Cell, something you don't generally have any reason to do. The GPU has fast access (~20GB/s) to the Cell's memory (called Main Memory) which is much more useful. You can split up your texture usage between the two memory pools and cut down on memory contention. Anyhow, too many winter brews, so I'll stop rambling.

Re:Yes

[rubypossum]

Don't insult a decent Czech brew accidentally. It's best to qualify the name like "American Budweiser". Since Czech Budweiser is actually a nice beer. And I like fine Belgian beer (brune, not the light stuff.)

Don't generalize with things like "The U.S.". Bullshit. The U.S. cannot be easily summarized in simple aphorisms. It's very nearly as complex and varied in it's customs and practices as Russia or China.

-I like Belgian beer.
-I have paintings hanging all over my house.
-I go to the little place down the street for every meal.

-I am from "The U.S.".

Please choose a suitable minority group to pin those on. Like rednecks. They drink American Budweiser, they got that mirror from their Uncle Joe and they squish Fireflies and laugh when the goo inside comes out. Chances are they'll be buying a new PS3 with their Aunt Sue's welfare check.

Apologies.
- Jonathan

Re:Yes

[Total_Wimp]

I was trying to put it on any group. It's just a numbers game. More people buy American Budweiser in America than any Belgian beer. However, that doesn't make Bud better, just more popular in the population as a whole. The same thing will happen with consoles. One will sell more than the others, but it doesn't neccessarily mean it's the best.

TW

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

(hint: on the cell, 7 of the cores are just fancy FPUs)

Fancy vector FPUs with 128 registers.

The Cell has one memory bus to serve eight cores. In addition, local memory bandwidth for read in the Cell is 16MB/s, from Sony's own slides.

According to Sony PS3 jargon, "local memory" is not the memory for the CPU, but the video memory that has some serious bandwidth for the graphics card. It works mostly like AGP in that respect.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've heard you are on the mark with the memory bus competition, and your logic was on the mark about paralyzing a particular set of code, but you conclusion isn't completely right.

It IS true that if we have code that is essential to the game and we want to paralyze it on an 8 core chip, then there is no way that code will be 8 times as fast, likely it will be 2 to 3 times faster at best. But we can do other non-essential things with the idle time of the cores that aren't waiting on the longest thread. For example, additional particle effects that are just for show, weather effects, hell maybe we want to run some folding at home in the spare cycles of gameplay (yeah I know it's stupid). To use your analogy while 9 women will still take 9 months to produce 1 baby, 9 women can produce 1 baby and more than 9x as many baby clothes in 9 months compared to 1 woman. Before the pregnant woman might have not even though of knitting baby clothes because she was busy taking care of herself and dealing with the work of a pregnancy. But with 9 women, the other 8 might start to think what can I do that is useful for this baby?

So yes, it's true. The cell processor won't do the same thing 8 times faster. BUT it can theoretically do 8 times as much. Of course, using the cell optimally is something only a handful of developers can do, and most of them likely aren't writing too many games.

Re:Yes

[smallfries]

You are assuming that the parallel code and the sequential code have some sort of dependency that force them to run in sequence, otherwise the speedup is 4x for the Cell, rather than 2.9x. Obviously as the 25% bottleneck is reduced, the speedup is greater. The majority of code in a game is parallelisable - although it is not always easy to write it that way. The 25% is more like 2.5% for sequencing IO. All of the graphics code can be parallelised (assuming multiple viewport you can just do software SLI). AI is heavily parallelisable (especially the crappy rule-based search that current games use). Physics simulation is a classic parallel processing problem.

I would expect to see near complete utilisation of the Cell, right around the time that Sony introduces the PS4...

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with your argument. AI is determined mostly by the routine/software, instead of CPU speed. As far as physics modeling goes, even PS2 can handle complex physics with one eyes closed (assuming PS2 has eyes). The extra CPU speed is used to perfect details and textures, mostly cosmetics.

Re:Yes

[theLOUDroom]

You are assuming that the parallel code and the sequential code have some sort of dependency that force them to run in sequence

Which should be plainly obvious. You're going to be playing 1 game, not 4 games with no interrelation to each other.

Your belief regarding the amount of code that can be parallelized seems to be based on a similar error. For example, with physics you'll be able to parallelize the physics of ALL THE OBJECTS THAT DON'T INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER. Having the motion of no object affected by any other object would be a screensaver, not a game.

It's also not right to just take the percentage of tasks that can be parallelized, multiply them by the number of cpus and consider that a speed increase. This is because you are not accounting for the assosciated PENALTY when these new processors do need to communicate with each other.
Maybe my parallelizable code runs 4X faster, but the other code might run half as fast with all the extra communications overhead.

Re:Yes

[smallfries]

Which should be plainly obvious. You're going to be playing 1 game, not 4 games with no interrelation to each other.

Really? So if I pick the sound code and the graphics code as an example you're telling me that there will be a sequential dependency between them? Just because two things are related does not mean that they are dependent.

For example, with physics you'll be able to parallelize the physics of ALL THE OBJECTS THAT DON'T INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER.

Ah, using capitals to reinforce your point. Let me correct your error:
ALL THE OBJECTS THAT DON'T directly INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER.
I'm sure you can tell which word I've added. Now think about this question - do you think that physics simulations on graphics hardware, or the PhysX board are sequential in nature? Although direct interaction implies communication, and hence a sequential dependency in the code, we live in a (mostly) Euclidean universe, and that limits the number of direct interactions. If you're simulating force interactions like electostatics between particles then everything has a direct interaction. But in a game the simulation is of collisions, and gravity. In this case not all objects directly affect each other. Hence they can be clustered into separate groups which can be processed in parallel. Going back to the cell as the example, I'd expect there are more than 8 such groups in every game simulation.

Re:Yes

[destine]

Just as a point of order, I got to play the nintendo wii last night with a friend. She works at nintendo and they got to take their unit home a little early. I've already got my Mii programmed into my wii remote. But, to the point, it was a lot of fun for me. I really enjoyed the game play and while I'm not sure it will be good for everything(Red Steel was very difficult for me to get the hang of), overall the games I have and even wii sports were just plain fun. You won't see the massive graphics budgets like the ps3 will get, but I've never been big on the latest greatest graphics. I get a system because I think it will have fun games.

Also, just as a note, the Rayman game, Raving Rabbids I think it's called, is cute, funny, and very quirky and had all of us in stitches even though we couldn't play 4 player mode because my friend forgot to get my nunchuks. Still totally fun game.

Re:Yes

[kthejoker]

The major difference between Nintendo and Sony in that case is that the PS3 is backwards compatible with PS2 games.

So it's not just based on reputation, it's based on an "upgrade" type mentality.

Re:Yes

[theLOUDroom]

Really? So if I pick the sound code and the graphics code as an example you're telling me that there will be a sequential dependency between them? Just because two things are related does not mean that they are dependent.

This is a false argument. Even if you find two things which are not dependant on each other, it does not follow that there are no dependancies in the entire game. It's pretty damn obvious that the video and sound output DO have a sequential dependency on the controller input.

But in a game the simulation is of collisions, and gravity. In this case not all objects directly affect each other.

Well actually they do, or at least you have to assume they do until you've checked otherwise. Or are the bullets passing through the enimies with no effect? Sounds like a pretty silly game to me.

Re:Yes

[VGPowerlord]

Before I go any farther, I'm going to note that I was a big Sony supporter during the last two generations.

You want my opinion? The PS3 is too expensive. I'm not going to buy it... not until it has a drastic price cut. Say 50% or more.

The major difference between Nintendo and Sony in that case is that the PS3 is backwards compatible with PS2 games.

So it's not just based on reputation, it's based on an "upgrade" type mentality.

You're right, the Wii won't play PS2 games. It will, however, play Gamecube games. Oh, and the virtual console system will have titles from the NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, and Turbo-Grafx 16. The catch is that you will have to purchase these titles from the online store.

Sony is planning on having something like this for PS1 games, but as far as I've seen, no details are yet available. Yes, I'm aware that downloadable games are something pioneered by the X-Box 360 (well, not really, but the Satellaview system never hit North America).

There's also a problem with the PS3 not being 100% backwards compatible. I've already seen a note on their site that one of my PS1 games, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, is listed as having compatibility problems.

Another problem: The PS3 doesn't have PS1/PS2 memory card slots built in. I can't play my games without copying data from my memory cards to the PS3's hard drive using a special adapter, which does not appear to be shipped with the PS3. That's a major roadblock for backwards compatibility. I like memory cards because they're portable. Who knows, maybe I'm the only person who sees this as an issue, but I doubt it.

Re:Yes

[Raenex]

Xbox Live is ok, but it could be so much better. My biggest gripe with it is that online functionality between games is so uneven. There are too many times when something isn't working right, but you have no feedback as to what the problem is. Microsoft should have made some umbrella network monitor that you could escape to in order to see what was going on. Instead networking is just a black box.

Oh by the way, achievements and gamerscore are lame.

Re:Yes

[prockcore]

The reason you won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii is because you'll be able to just walk up to a shelf and pick up a Wii!

Oh how I wish that were true. We went to the two 24hr walmarts in town at around 9pm saturday, and there were lines... already longer than the number of available consoles.

There are a lot of people camping out at the Target down the street from me, waiting for it to open 11 hours later.. and all 60 consoles at that target have been spoken for.

Re:Yes

[smallfries]

This is a false argument. Even if you find two things which are not dependant on each other, it does not follow that there are no dependancies in the entire game. It's pretty damn obvious that the video and sound output DO have a sequential dependency on the controller input.

No the argument is correct. Although there are lots of sequential dependencies in the game, there is also lots of code that can be parallelised. The parallelisation is limited by the length of the longest sequential chain - this is another phrasing of Ahmdahl's law that the OP quoted. Everything within a timeslice (say a frame) will have a dependency on the IO, and the final output of the frame and sound will be dependent on everything in the timeslice, but this is not a large chain. One frame is typically ouput while the next is being computed (pipelining) - so the two tasks can be performed in parallel if you accept a one-frame latency. This is what most games do when they double-buffer the graphics. So then you are only concerned with the dependencies *within* a timeslice. Is the physics code, the graphics code, the AI code or the sound code dependent on each other within a timeslice? No. Read the article on Steam / Halflife Episode 2 sometime, it explains this coarse-grain parallelism well.

Well actually they do, or at least you have to assume they do until you've checked otherwise. Or are the bullets passing through the enimies with no effect? Sounds like a pretty silly game to me.

Now you've slipped back to fine-grain parallelism. Here's a clue: do I need to check the bullet against *every* object in the game? Wouldn't that be a bit silly? How about nearby ones only? Oooh, this would need some kind of spatial data-structure like an oct-tree. Then lets split the timestep into two-phases, on the first phase we'll compute all interactions between objects that are well within their spatial sub-division. We'll then broadcast these changes, and then process the areas around intersections. Gosh, a sequetial dependency chain of two steps - that's a constant by the way. And potential parallelism for as many processors as we have sub-divisions (or buckets if you will) in the spatial structure. This is why physics code can be parallelised well.

The comment about electrostatics applies because if you are considering non-local fields of interactions then this approach is borked and you need to consider n-squared interactions. But even then you can simulate in discrete timesteps and trade latency for potential parallelism.

In summary - there are no inter-module sequential dependencies because of double buffering (this is called ping-ponging in the GPGPU community). The intra-module sequential dependencies can be minimised by grouping spatial regions into a single calculation, although as Valve have pointed out this is difficult. And in fact there is 30 years of research into how to solve this problem. For a working example have a look at GPGPU where there is a paper showing a million particle simulation working in parallel on a GPU.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely a funny typo. (And that's coming from a guy who missed an opportunity to spend the evening with his wife and her girlfriend in order to get his wife a Wii at launch. Way to encourage me to sit in the cold all night, honey.)

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried 5 different midnight opening lines for the Wii launch yesterday before settling in for the night at a line normal-hours opening for a location with 63 units (a Target). I got the 18th ticket that morning, and got to watch a crowd of at least 30 people wander off when they were done handing out the tickets. That was after being 1 person too late at two different Walmarts. I'm guessing that the Wii was sold out within 1 hour of any given store's opening (including the time needed for people to actually *pay* for the console).

I was lucky. I got a Wii, Zelda, Monkey Ball, Marvel, 3 extra Wiimotes, 3 extra Nunchucks, and 2 'classic' controllers. The Walmarts were limiting you to 1 game, 1 Wiimote, 1 nunchuck, and 1 classic controller. Of course, today after work I need to clean the leftover hot chocoloate out of my thermos. (Forgot about it until just now. Ick.)

Re:Yes

[mink]

Just wait till your Xbox is a few years old.

I'm gutting mine and modchipping it so I can put in a quite HDD and DVD drive and mount it all in a AV type project box.

I'm doing this because it is actually painful to use the thing for either games or video playback. It's like there is a banshee inside of it. It was nice and quite (in comparison) when I first bought it (I think it's version 1) but not any more. My version 1 gamecube only got a little louder with age.

Re:Yes

[nschubach]

Graphics, greater storage(well, for one at least), faster processor, enhanced controller...I guess the graphics increase was the only improvement :rolleyes:

Well...

[voice_of_all_reason]

I'm getting nintendo solely because the effort required to get a PS3 was analagous to a real life game of Dead Rising.

Re:Well...

[aleksiel]

just imagine how awesome a game of dead rising would be with the wii....

Re:Well...

[jas203]

So what you're saying is that to stand a better chance of getting a PS3 you had to own a Xbox360?
Wow, the costs really did start to add up for the potential PS3 owner!

Re:Well...

[Forrest Kyle]

Rarely have a username and a comment come together in such perfect harmony. =)

That THAT is why I want a wii

[Thansal]

The standard post the people bring up when ever we start drooling over the Wii (and we do drool a bit)is that is is "all about games".

Well, when people that are involved in making the games express prefference on the Wii, I sorta feel compeled to think that the Wii will have more games (and more importantly, a diverse selection).

the anounced titles for the next year (Wii vs PS3) has be interested in 3 games coming out on the PS3, and about 10 games on the Wii.

Re:That THAT is why I want a wii

[wiggles]

That would be nice and all, if the developers actually made the decisions on what games to produce for what platform. Unfortunately, it seems the bean counters make these decisions more and more, and if they think they can make more money by developing for the PS3 than the Wii, you'll see more PS3 games. One can make a very compelling argument for producing more and better Wii games than PS3 games, though... Shorter time to market, less steep learning curve, lower cost of development, etc. Now all we need are for more Wiis in the hands of gamers than PS3s, which seems to be happening at least in the near term, and Nintendo is back on top with a console less advanced than either rival -- reminds me of how the NES beat the Genesis back in the day.

Re:That THAT is why I want a wii

[jounihat]

Actually, for some people it's not all about games. If and when I can install fully supported Linux on PS3, it will become much more than just a gaming machine. But only time will tell how useful it'll be as a computer.

Re:That THAT is why I want a wii

[Moofie]

Yes, for the four people who care about running Linux on the PS3, it's not all about games. For Sony, the PS3 is a wedge to force acceptance of Blu-Ray. It's not all about games for them.

For the rest of the world buying game consoles? It's all about games.

Re:That THAT is why I want a wii

[Nintendork]

Which system will get the most developer support post launch isn't that big of a mystery. Just look at sales figures. Developers are out to make money, so they'll make their game either multi-platform or for the system with the highest numbers.

Re:That THAT is why I want a wii

[MindStalker]

http://www.playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/index. html
Sony has already posted instructions for putting Linux on the PS3, expect once the inital gameboys die down you will be seeing a lot of people buying the PS3 purely as a computer platform. For the price point of $600 for what is arguable a very high performance computer, its not a bad deal.

Re:That THAT is why I want a wii

[TheRaven64]

For the price point of $600 for what is arguable a very high performance computer, its not a bad deal.

As a general purpose computer, it is seriously crippled by only having 256MB of RAM. I haven't used a computer for about three years that had less than a gigabyte, and that's typically all used. Linux isn't exactly lightweight these days, and so 256MB is likely to feel very cramped.

The PowerPC core of the cell is not very fast, and if you do anything that could actually take advantage of the SPUs then you'd be better off buying a Cell blade or workstation and getting a non-defective chip (i.e. one with 8, instead of 7 working SPUs).

Re:That THAT is why I want a wii

[Moofie]

Why on EARTH would you spend $600 for a PlayStation as a computer when you could spend the same money and get a far more capable, flexible machine?

Hell, you could buy a Mac Mini that will beat the Playstation on just about every spec except 3D rendering power, and that's hardly the prime attribute of general-purpose computers.

Re:That THAT is why I want a wii

[Anonymous Coward]

NES wasn't in direct competition with Genesis, SNES was. The 16-bit Genesis was clearly a better machine than the 8-bit NES, but it came out much later, after the NES had already established its dominance. The SNES followed the Genesis, and there things got murkier.

Re:That THAT is why I want a wii

[Senjutsu]

Actually, the Mac Mini would beat the PS3 running Linux in 3D rendering power too.

Linux on the PS3 runs on top of a hypervisor which locks off the graphics hardware. It's framebuffer only. Linux for the PS3 is a geek niche product, very few people have needs simple enough that they're going to want to use it as a general purpose computer given its RAM and framebuffer-only limitations.

Wow....EA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two of the selected quote-ees is from EA. I'll take them seriously when they take building PC games seriously.

Re:Wow....EA?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Everyone complains about how much EA sucks and how they just rehash last year's Madden with new names. But now that they're siding with the /. popular Wii they're awesome! EA is the last company I want to hear about innovation from. It's funny how attitudes change here when someone in the industry, even if you hate them, agrees with your opinion.

I'm sick of reading how fun the wii is. It's not, because it's not out. It may be fun, but it's not right now. I'll say the Wii is fun and or innovative once I actually play it. I may buy one at launch depending on how I feel. Looks great for sports and such.

Now let the down modding begin.

Re:Wow....EA?

[AKAImBatman]

Two of the selected quote-ees is from EA

Well, that settles it. We'd better ignore the comments from Ubisoft, Activision, GarageGames, Full Sail, and other reputable shops. EA is there, so they spoil it for everyone. :-/

Re:Wow....EA?

[Thansal]

see, that is sorta the amusing part.

EA has released a DIFFERENT madden for the Wii. Instead of the standard "ooooo look our game is so much purdier then last yeras, BUY IT!", they focused compleatly on the controlls.

No, I will not buy it (I hate sports games with a passion), however I might just rent it for the novelty sake.

So even there, we are seeing some of the worst companies out there (I do dislike EA, especialy with them taking the rehash market to the BF series now), however, they seem to actualy taking the inovation ball and running with it....

Re:Wow....EA?

[Overly Critical Guy]

EA actually announced this year that it has increased its support for the Wii based on the surprise positive response to the system at E3 2006.

Wii Campers?

[amrust]

I wonder... why I have seen no media stories about loads of people camping out in front of stores, for a chance to snag a new Wii? All you ever see is PS3!, PS3!, blah blah.

Re:Wii Campers?

[tuffy]

Since there's going to be plenty of Wiis available, there's little incentive to camp out for one to make a quick buck on eBay.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Kimos]

I wonder... why I have seen no media stories about loads of people camping out in front of stores, for a chance to snag a new Wii?

That's because, in theory, there are plenty of Wiis to go around. Nintendo is manufacturing millions. It shouldn't be hard to get one within the first week or so. At least that's what I'm banking on and from what I've read I don't seem to be alone. With the PS3 everyone knew they didn't make enough to meet demand...

Jab at MS: I tried to pre-order but every store I went to said that after the Xbox360 scandal they've ditched pre-orders almost all together.

Re:Wii Campers?

[trmj]

I believe you'll find your answer here.

Re:Wii Campers?

[DanielNS84]

Maybe because Nintendo is making enough of them?

OOOHH!!! Burned!

Re:Wii Campers?

[Durinthal]

Um.. because the PS3 came out today and the Wii is coming out Sunday?

Re:Wii Campers?

[Mr. Hankey]

I tried to pre-order one, unfortunately I was 28th in line and the Toys R Us only had 25 preorders. Pity they didn't mention that on the pre-order sign, it's the first console I've ever stood in line for and I'm never doing that again. Hopefully there are plenty to go around, I'm quite interested in trying the new controllers. 3D graphics are everywhere, but good 3D input has been a long time coming in the console market.

Re:Wii Campers?

[HappySqurriel]

That's because, in theory, there are plenty of Wiis to go around. Nintendo is manufacturing millions. It shouldn't be hard to get one within the first week or so. At least that's what I'm banking on and from what I've read I don't seem to be alone. With the PS3 everyone knew they didn't make enough to meet demand...

Yeah, I pretty much feel the same way as you (and I think most people do aswell) ...

The fact is that with how many units Nintendo is producing, and how quickly they should be able to restock, there is little chance of a long term shortage; what this leads to is that there is little opportunity for profit so less scalpers are interested in the system. With scalpers not camping out for days (or weeks) to get a system it is more likely that you will be able to get one on launch day without camping out yourself.

Ultimately this means that the Wii will have a (successful) launch that is very orderly; there aren't going to be riots or muggings, all that is going to happen is most people who want a Wii on launch day are going to get one with (potentially) some having to wait a week or two. This means that there is little that is news worthy so it gets less press.

I have wondered for a while what would happen if the press put a different slant on the stories that they release if you would see companies react differently; if the PS3 launch was reported as "Sony was incompetent and released far too few systems which caused massive riots at Best-Buy" rather than "The PS3 is the hot item to have, and its launch caused riots" would Sony try to ensure that the PS4 launch was orderly? If the Wii launch went well and news agencies reported it as "Nintendo had a successful system launch this weekend selling 950,000 systems; that is over twice as many systems as the XBox 360 or PS3 were able to sell in their opening days" would there be a greater focus on producing enough units to meet demand?

It seems to me that because news agencies focus on negative things that a lot of companies will produce negative things (shortages) in order to get coverage on the news; I'm not saying that Sony went out of their way to produce too few systems, just that if they only got news coverage for a good launch they would ensure that production was on schedule.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Fozzyuw]

Since there's going to be plenty of Wiis available, there's little incentive to camp out for one to make a quick buck on eBay.

Ding ding ding! I would be bold to say that more than HALF of the PS3 campers are all eBay entrepreneurs. That, mixed with most people could get Wii pre-orders and personal statements like Wal-Mart and big-box retailers getting 50 boxes each means there will be less problems getting a copy... even before Xmas.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Wii Campers?

[AnswerIs42]

The only thing Wii related that seems to be in short supply on launch day is the new Zelda game.

Re:Wii Campers?

[rob1980]

The negative press coverage has the added effect of making gamers in general look like psychotic raving lunatics subservient to evil Japanese overlords in the mind of somebody who doesn't care to tell the difference. Instead of it being about who had a successful launch vs. who had a poorly-coordinated launch, it's about those evil video game companies cleaning our children's bank accounts and driving them to violence in front of Best Buy. I'm glad the console business is doing well, but you'd think that with all the time and effort Sony put into this thing they would have put the system into production way before July to ensure people wouldn't have to step all over each other to get one.

Re:Wii Campers?

[freeweed]

Absolutely the news is focussed on the negative.

The most newsworthy game story this week? A console is being released WITHOUT lineups, WITHOUT ebay madnes, and WITHOUT riots. We haven't seen that in many years now. You'd think someone would be pointing this out. The lineups are just typical videogame news now.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Phisbut]

I wonder... why I have seen no media stories about loads of people camping out in front of stores, for a chance to snag a new Wii? All you ever see is PS3!, PS3!, blah blah.

Fun story... I was watching the news this morning, they sent a reporter at Best Buy during the night, and interviewed the people standing in line. Knowing quite well that most of those people weren't really gamers and were just trying to make a quick buck by reselling it, they asked them a few interesting questions...

• What are you waiting in line for? (Obvious answer, everybody knew that one)
• So, you're into video games? (Most said yes, some said "Not that much")
• Which game will you be playing on your new console? (About half of the people in line couldn't name a single game that was available for the PS3...)

Then, when the store opened at 8am, they kept filming the queue, watching the first 14 people get in the store (which had 28 consoles), and then all of those 14 new PS3 owners all headed towards the same truck after leaving the store... obviously giving them to someone who would be reselling them.

Then the reporter also passed a comment saying that some of the people waiting in line and getting a PS3 are not the type you would expect of a gamer, and that we're more used to see those people on street corners asking for change...

It's nice to see some of the media don't buy into the whole PS3 hype and aren't afraid of talking about people that hire bums to wait in line for them and such.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Golias]

I would be bold to say that more than HALF of the PS3 campers are all eBay entrepreneurs.

Interesting theory, except I drove by that line, and the people I saw sitting by those tents were not exactly the type of people who would have the ambition to be any kind of black-market middle-man, if you know what I mean.

Even if they were speculative buyers, think about it for a minute. They are not going to be allowed to buy 400 units each. They are waiting in line 24 hours to buy a $600 console which the might be able to sell for $800, or might be stuck with owning or perhaps selling at a loss.

If the console is not a big enough hit, if Sony's supply chain catches up, or if eBay gets flooded with too many other such speculators, they end up with nothing.

So why would they wager a full day of sitting out in the cold, their numb little fingers clutching their PSPs and DS-Lites, as they wait for the chance to buy something they don't want, just so they can try to sell it.

If you want to be an eBay seller, just buy shit that is commonly available, and sell it to people who don't live near the retail outlet it comes from with the "Buy it now" button set at a 20% mark-up.

Or buy drugs downtown and sell them in the suburbs. Either way, you'll make a lot more money, a lot more easilly, than trying to eBay a game console or two.

Those guys in line are all typical gamer nerds, and are there because they want PSPs. In spite of all the Sony hate on slashdot, in spite of the absurd price, and in spite of all the obvious astroturfing for the Wii since the day they announced the upcoming announcement of it, lots of people seem to want to own one. Go figure.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Golias]

Those guys in line are all typical gamer nerds, and are there because they want PS3s.

Sorry about the typo.

Re:Wii Campers?

[cmpalmer]

Yeah, but they think they're going to scalp it on eBay for more like $3000 than $800, buy a Wii, buy other stuff, then pick up another PS3 after Christmas. What the reality will be we'll know in a few days if there are a lot of unbought PS3's on eBay (or if they're selling at right around MSRP + minimal markup).

Re:Wii Campers?

[theredmenace]

I got a pre-order for my Wii. I was in Toronto for a concert and I got up at 5 AM, took the earliest bus home, went straight to EB, and got the 11th of 12 preorders 2 minutes before it would have been gone. There were 2 PS3 preorders available for half an hour after that, and there was only 5 available. If I was smart, I would have bought and sold it.

A few minutes after I arrived, two kids came in homemade t-shirts and were told they were too late. They very nearly broke down into tears.

The reaction of the people too late for a PS3 was: "Oh, damn." and then they just left.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Constantine Evans]

They aren't selling them for $800, they're selling for $99,999,999, which makes standing in line for 24 hours quite worth it!

On a more serious note, does anyone know what happened with this? At first glance it doesn't seem to just be one or two people with new accounts putting in false bids.

Re:Wii Campers?

[businessnerd]

Great little comic. I think that is exactly what is going to happen, that is of course if Nintendo does in fact deliver on the supply end. It reminds me of a simulation I took part in in my business policy course back in college:

The idea was that our class was split into five different "shoe companies". Each week we would enter information on how much to produce, how much they cost, and other business decisions that go into selling a shoe. At the end of the week, the simulation runs and we see who sold the most. The intersting part for my team was that we ended up selling the most shoes most weeks, but we were not necessarily the most demanded. The most demanded company stocked out at a fairly low number. Everyone who wanted that shoe, then bought our shoe because it was relatively close in value to their number one choice. As this happened week after week, we then started stocking out because our demand started increasing beyond our capacity. In the end, we were able to have the largest production capacity, while still holding on to our demand and sold two times the amount of our nearest competitor. We got an A on the project and I think Nintendo is setting themselves up for an A as well.

For every lunitic that endured horrible weather and violence to get a PS3, there is at least 30 people that decided to wait it out. At least half of those 30 will probably not really care if they get a PS3 or a Wii, and go with the one that is available right now for them to buy.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Golias]

Notice how most of those buyers don't have much of a bid history?

You are not looking at what the consoles are selling for. You are looking at what scam artists trying to create a market are making it look like they are selling for.

The top bidder has only existed since May, and is "no longer a registered user."

The #2 and #3 purchases are from the same person. Are you telling me there's somebody out there who wants to spend almost $20,000 on two $600 game consoles? Do you think anybody actually believes that's what's going on here?

Re:Wii Campers?

[Golias]

Oops. I stand corrected. The fake bids are in the tens of Millions, not tens of thousands.

Yeah, I'm sure that's fooling everybody. *rolls eyes*

Re:Wii Campers?

[Fozzyuw]

So why would they wager a full day of sitting out in the cold, their numb little fingers clutching their PS[3]s and DS-Lites, as they wait for the chance to buy something they don't want, just so they can try to sell it.

I say more than half for the following reasons (and it is pure speculation on my part)...

1. Of the 10 people who got the place holder tickets at my Wal-Mart last night, 4 of them said they're were going to sell them on eBay, with agreeing nods from others, which isn't to say there would be others, but it seems like it's on a lot of peoples mind.
2. CNN over lunch, while I was working out, had an 'expert' on who said that he thinks more than half will try to sell them. (this was after I already made my post though).
3. CNN.com has this following story...

   Some customers were buying PS3 machines for themselves or as gifts, but many were hoping to resell them at a profit. Units were fetching several thousand dollars early Friday at the eBay Inc. auction site.

   James Salterio, 27, explained the reason for his two-day camp-out outside a Houston, Texas, Target store: Greed.

   "I'm gonna sell mine," Salterio said, figuring he could make $1,500 to $4,000. His 21-year-old brother, a gamer, wanted company in line, so Salterio decided to make a profit in the process.

   "It's capitalism at work," he said.

   Edgar Alcala, 18, who grabbed one of the first spots in line at San Francisco, California's Sony Metreon Mall on Wednesday morning, said he was looking forward to a warm, dry bed and a hefty profit.

   full article

4. History. This happened with the PS2 and with the XBox 360. People sold them for big gains.
5. Supply and Demand. I'm not a fan of Sony, but I know a lot of people are. I also know the PS3 will succeed (which doesn't mean they won't loose market share). I also know that Sony is having serious supply issue. The demand is there, particularly for the 'first batch'. The Supply is not. This will warrant people to try to capitalize on this phenomenon as (some) will get a good return.
6. My friend is helping his cousin buy as many PS3's to resell, including standing in lines for hours or days.
7. There's plenty of rich celebs. who will want this and pay for it since they can but won't justify standing in line for one.
8. Shawn Hannidy, a popular Conservative Republican talk radio host, said last night he would buy a PS3 for his kid at a premium price and ask people to email him their offers. So, there are people who will buy it at a premium. Though, I doubt it to be a 300-400% premium.

the people I saw sitting by those tents were not exactly the type of people who would have the ambition to be any kind of black-market middle-man, if you know what I mean.

hehe, I know what you mean, but I also know that doesn't mean much. Those are likely groups of friends who are doing it together. Each will buy a PS3, only one will keep it. The friends will then share the one system between them while they profit on the other consoles sold and buy it when the next round comes out and still profit, if they can sell them for the $2,000 they're states as going for. (that's debatable).

So, I stick by my guns and still say there's plenty of people, around that half mark, that are doing it for the sole purpose of selling them, thinking, it's a get rich quick scheme. Of course, some will work, while others won't. I think there will be plenty of disappointed people... to a degree. Those who cannot sell it will probably be happy to just open it up and use it. I feel sorry for those who are stock-piling them.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Wii Campers?

[onebitcpu]

Here in Ontario, there will be campers.
29 available at the local Walmart, EB-games will have "some" for walk-ins.
Other stores have either just enough to cover pre-orders, or one or two.

I will probably be camping out at walmart, and hoping they hand out vouchers early enough that I can go get some sleep for a few hours before the store opens.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apology Accepted.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that the Cannibal Corpse concert in Toronto on Nov 15?

Re:Wii Campers?

[voxel]

>> They are waiting in line 24 hours to buy a $600 console which the might be able to sell for $800, or might be stuck with owning or perhaps selling at a loss.

UHM, NO.

#1. They are going for ~ $3,500 USD on eBay right now.
#2. If for some reason you couldn't sell yours, there is a nice little thing called a store return policy. Usually being 30 days.

Thank you very much.

Re:Wii Campers?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny. A month ago, I got the same "there will be plenty" response from game stores. 2 weeks ago, they started telling me that even though each store is getting 16 to 25, demand is so high they suggest camping overnight to get one. Most game stores will be sold out of them, although some general purpose toy stores like ToysRUs will have them on launch day without a line, simply because nobody thinks to look for them there. Regardless, I'll be surprised if there is a single Wii left unsold by Sunday night.

Re:Wii Campers?

[xantho]

Check it out. I'm in Atlanta, and the supply here, according to that database is going to be totally bananas. The one Toys R Us on North Point Pkwy. in Roswell, GA is going to have 80 to sell for its launch event, and then 80 more on Monday, according to the two helpful employees that I talked to. And there's a Walmart, a Best Buy, a Target, and two EB Games' within 3 miles of that store, each with 25-60 of their own. And then, there's a Walmart, two Targets, a Best Buy, and two more EB Games stores within 3 miles of my house. This, honestly, isn't going to be difficult, and I fully expect to buy one at midnight, Sunday morning.

Re:Wii Campers?

[AvitarX]

You forgot the Xbox360 though.

It is a more obvious substitution for the $500-$600 PS3 than the $250 Wii.

Re:Wii Campers?

[seebs]

I just checked; every 24-hour wal*mart I called has 20 units, and a line of at least 20 people waiting for them. There's tents in front of Best Buy.

Controllers? Component cables? Already sold out.

Re:Wii Campers?

[forgotten_my_nick]

I'm reminded of the Simpsons where the marketing woman said she wouldn't be happy until she saw some face stomping as everyone tried to buy Funzo.

Maybe I'm getting old but I can quite happly wait until supplys are up to get it at a reasonable price.

Of the two machines even though the PS3 has the better graphics it offers up nothing new in regards to gameplay. The Wii on the other hand looks like it could be interesting to play. I can (imho) see the Wii of a more party console where as the PS3 is more for solo players (at home I mean).

Based on this article.....

[LordPhantom]

.... I can see that "many game industry experts" also like posting as Annonymous Cowards as well! (Disclaimer: I love the Wii and will be buying one long before a PS3, but if they're saying "here's a list of game industry experts" they should get rid of the ones who won't post their names. Sheesh.)

Re:Based on this article.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Mods - how is this post offtopic? If you read the article, there are a large number of quotes by anonymous sources.

Re:Based on this article.....

[chrisbtoo]

It's because they all work for Sony.

Re:Based on this article.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. Close, though. Aside from professional journalists, most industry people work in the industry (strange coincidence that). Almost everywhere I work, I sign both an NDA and a policy doc that says something to the effect of "keep yer mouth shut." The fact that EA people (for example) are willing to go on the record with their low opinion of the PS3 and the people marketing it says volumes about the machine itself and the kind of support you can expect for it. The fact that they are not disclaiming it with "just my opinion" says even more.

Re:Based on this article.....

[Twiceblessedman]

Because they work for the competition

yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously
The Wii makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint.

Poor Sony

[trmj]

Literally. Didn't they lose some redonkulous amount of money this year due to PS3 R&D? I mean, overall as a company in previous years the gaming department was the only thing keeping Sony afloat, then they go and spend all that money on a system that the industry doesn't even back. Not to mention that the XBox 360 is poised to take Sony's spot in Japan, due to the insanely low price point of the system. Can I get a netcraft troll to confirm it?

Re:Poor Sony

[Red Flayer]

I mean, overall as a company in previous years the gaming department was the only thing keeping Sony afloat

What? Whose ass are you pulling that out of?

Sony's recent financials show that Sony Pictures, Sony Games, and Sony Financial Services have been sharing the load -- and the games division has been responsible for less than 1/3 the operating income the last two years, and slightly over 1/3 in 2004. For 2006, Sony Financial Services dominates their operating income.

Re:Poor Sony

[deckstuff]

xbox 360? japan? more ps3's were sold on the first day in japan than the number of xbox 360's sold in japan all year long

http://www.the-magicbox.com/topten.htm

of course DS sales (and presumably the wii) > ps3 + xbox360

Re:Poor Sony

[redragon]

Maybe they should listen to developers AHEAD of time next time. Instead of forging ahead blindly based upon their own hubris.

Re:Poor Sony

[falcon5768]

I mean, overall as a company in previous years the gaming department was the only thing keeping Sony afloat,

Um no, infact its only in recent years they have even made a profit after the R&D that went into the PS2 which also promised much but delivered little of what it promised. Actually the only manufacturer who has not only had a financially stable game system, but a profitable one is Nintendo, who actually made more profit off the Gamecube than the PS2 ever did in its life up to date.

Sony music and movies are their profitable divisions.

Re:Poor Sony

[Saikik]

I clicked your link. Please show me where the PS3 is listed?

Ironically enough...

[fatty ding dong]

Nintendo is the only company with a next-gen system that ISN'T trying to force a new media standard on gamers. In the past, Nintendo was always the odd one out (sticking with the old cartridges, small optical disc instead of CD or DVD). Now, Nintendo is tapping into the mainstream while the other big two are forcing their standards on gamers. It cost Nintendo when they absolutely had to have their own unique media, now it appears Sony and MS will repeat the mistakes of the past.

Show the gamers a game that makes good use of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray and they may buy some of the hype. Until then, all glory to Nintendo.

Re:Ironically enough...

[MBraynard]

Show the gamers a game that makes good use of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray and they may buy some of the hype. Until then, all glory to Nintendo.

360 isn't forcing a new standard on anyone. You can get an HD-DVD if you so choose, but it won't be required for games - it just saves you some space and money if you areally are interested in HD-DVD.

Nintendo, on the other hand, doesn't offer you so much as a DVD player along with the Wii - they are stricter than the other guys in terms of forcing a standard with a format exclusive to them and them alone.

Re:Ironically enough...

[saboola]

The Xbox 360 runs on standard DVD, not HD-DVD. Just to clarify your post a bit. You can buy an HD-DVD addon now for the 360, but it only plays movies not games. Microsoft and Nintendo our both taking the standard DVD route.

Re:Ironically enough...

[Nerdfest]

TO be fair, the 360 is not forcing anything ... the HD-DVD is an option, as it should have been with the PS3, had Sony not been taken over by their media division. An exec from Sony Canada raved about the Blu-ray drive and HD in an interview before even mentioning the game platform.

Re:Ironically enough...

[Loadmaster]

What new media standard is MS trying to force on gamers? HD-DVD? How is offering an add on, that has no gaming capability, the same as forcing? The 360 media standard is DVD9. And MS isn't forcing the HD-DVD standard on gamers since it's for movies only.

Swi

Re:Ironically enough...

[brkello]

That's all great, but you have no idea what you are talkng about. The 360 has an HD-DVD add on that has nothing to do with gaming. It is just if you want to play HD-DVD disks. No forcing there. Nintendo was not always the odd one out. You either are very young or have a short memory. Nintendo was THE console. It was due to their reluctance to ditch cartridges and treating third party game makers like garbage that they allowed others to come out on top. The positive thing you can say about Nintendo is it looks like they are playing a lot better with third parties this go around which actually gives them some hope for this gen. Right now the Wii's advantage is its price point and its controller. The controller isn't that complicated and can be copied to a certain extent by other consoles if that takes off (I am not sure about patent issues, but the PS3 came up with sixaxis in no time...inferior yes, but they really pulled that out of nowhere). Nintendo will do very well initially...this is where if they can get enough penetration, they will get more people developing games there. But later in the lifecycle, the shortcomings of the console will become more apparant compared to the other two. If Nintendo has a strong enough start, they can come out on top. If they don't, they have less of a chance due to having less powerful hardware.

Wii puns

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheesey Wii pun contest starts!

Looks like Nintendo has a Wiinner on their hands.

Re:Wii puns

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Nintendo has a Wiinner on their hands.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Now excuse me, I need to double over in laughter. (BWHAHAH! HAH!)

Re:Wii puns

[Anonymous Coward]

The cut scene at the end of the game was a nice Wii-ward!

Re:Wii puns

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a wii-tard.

One thing people forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is that in the end, it is not the "game industry's" opinions that matter. The only opinion which truly matters is that of the consumer.

Re:One thing people forget...

[Turken]

Well, actually the "game industry" opinions DO matter. Consumers will have a hard time playing games on a system if most of the developers don't make games for that system.

Re:One thing people forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

Their feelings about the consoles don't really matter...companies develop games in order to sell them. So, assuming all things equal, it would be foolish for a majority of developers to ignore one console and let a minority of developers rake in the sales unchallenged.

Re:One thing people forget...

[jizziknight]

Exactly. The way I see it, the industry and the consumers feed off each other.

The devs prefer to make games for the system that has the largest install base because they'll have the best chance of selling a lot of copies. Of course, this is also dependent upon dev costs. If the costs of developing for a certain console (*cough*PS3*cough*) are high enough to significantly impact their profit margins, that dev house might look to the next console in line (in terms of install base). Conversely, if the the dev costs for a console are low enough, they may choose to make games for that console instead of or in addition to the console with the largest install base because they stand to make a profit even if they don't sell as many games.

On the consumer side, they (fanboism aside) prefer to buy the console with the most anticipated or existing quality games. And of course the price of the console affects this. The price needs to be mostly in line with the consumer's perceived value (fun/usability/whatever) of owning that console.

So it ends up being a vicious cycle, but either group can theoretically sway the trend the way they want. So if devs like making games for the Wii, more games will be available for the Wii, and in time, the Wii will end up having the largest install base. But if the consumers hate the Wii for whatever reason, and refuse to buy it, the devs will end up making games for another system in order to make a profit.

Just for argument's sake let's assume the following:

1. Devs love the Wii, hate the PS3, and are indifferent towards the Xbox360.
2. Consumers love the PS3, and hate both the Xbox360 and Wii.
3. Both groups are stubborn bastards.

So devs decide to mostly make games for the Wii and make a few for the Xbox360, but consumers only buy the PS3. Well both groups are SOL. So what happens? Who gives in? It's a matter of who has the most perceived power. It's a lot easier for the consumers to drop $250 each on a Wii than for the devs to drop a few million per game to start making/porting games for the PS3. So if the devs hold out indefinitely, they can force a switch. If the consumers then decide hold out, they're still at the mercy of the devs (unless the devs give up) because they can only play what the devs are willing to make. Of course, it could go the other way as well. It will never end in a stalemate because then nobody gets anything. It boils down to how resistant each side is to change. The consumers are the least resistant in terms of cost, but can individually be more resistant in terms of personal preference.

In reality, neither group has any more real power, because both will generally react to whatever the current trend is, and once a strong trend is apparent, it will eventually become the prevailing trend (and console). Yes, in theory, each group can enact a significant change, but only if the majority of the group acts together and is willing to hold out for an indefinite amount of time (which as we all know, will never happen).

Re:One thing people forget...

[alanQuatermain]

Well, actually the "game industry" opinions DO matter. Consumers will have a hard time playing games on a system if most of the developers don't make games for that system.

Actually, speaking as someone with a few (tentative) connections with some very high-profile game developers, and therefore some small insight into the strange ways their minds work, I think the following axiom will explain things a little better:

When developers are excited about the Wii, they will be more interested in what they can do with that, and will therefore come up with more/better ideas of how to use it.

Therefore, we are likely to see a number of fairly exciting things happening on the Wii, purely because it sparks the imagination of those who are making the games for it. It's actually interesting and novel, so the problem-solving types who develop the games are going to have a field day playing around and seeing what they can do with the Wiimote & so on.

That's a large part of why I (as a developer who will hopefully be working at a huge game studio some time in the next 12 months, if my wife agrees to the move) am planning on buying one on Sunday, when I'm just not interested enough in the Xbox 360 or the PS3. The allure of the Wii is in its novelty, meaning it will be intriguing and exciting. The lure of the Xbox360 and PS3 are the prettier graphics and the fact that new games won't be released for the preceding generation any more.

-Q

It is all Relative

[jcrash]

It depends on what you want. If you are looking for certain titles, you will be getting a specific console. If you are looking for the MOST games, you will probably be getting a Nintendo. If you are price-conscious (as virtually all consumers are), you will definitely get a Nintendo.

Nintendo is making the right move at the right time. Assuming they decide to come out with a wiii (i.e. next generation of console) faster than the others do, they will then be able to price is similar to this model and maintain their consumers. Honestly, $700 starter cost for a console is probably out of reach for around 80% of the average gamers. This is a market where you are going to make more money in the middle than at the leading edge.

Re:It is all Relative

[winomonkey]

I am curious what you mean when you say "average gamer" when referencing the 80% who cannot afford the new PS3. If you mean the 13-year old, then yes, 600 is way out of their range, and parents are a little less likely to spring for such a system. However, amongst the college and high school gamers out there (not to mention computer programming 30-40 y/o folks, making over 70k a year), 600 (or 700, which is what you are quoting) is doable.

I think that we can simplify this by breaking it out in the way that the systems have been marketed. The PS3 is targeted at GAMERS. People who spend money on video games and hardware on a somewhat-regular basis. New 500 dollar graphics card? Sure. New, 2000 dollar screen? Sure. Upgraded sound system? Sure. 600 dollar, high performance console? Why not.

The Wii, on the otherhand, is marketed for NONGAMERS. Not to say that it will not be a very fun system for playing games. It is just that it looks to appeal to the mothers, girls, children, and other people who would not regularly buy a system. There was an interview yesterday on Buisiness Week that addressed this very concept, with the famed creators discussing how they were making a mother-friendly system.

Nintendo is in fact making a great move. I will agree with you there. I will probably be buying one of the systems here during the holiday season. However, I feel that Sony is also making a good move. Is it better or worse than Nintendo's move? No, just different. We will see how it pans out over the next year, and then make a judgement.

[i am nobody's fanboy]

Re:It is all Relative

[brkello]

No offense, but if you want the MOST games, you go with the Xbox 360 which has by far more (obviously, since it has been out for awhile now). The answer to everything isn't Nintendo. I'm not saying it won't be great. Just don't let the fanboyism blind you so much that you start making stuff up.

Re:It is all Relative

[RRRobotHouse]

Walk into a CC, Best Buy, or EB Games and tell me what the mix of games from last-gen are. Nintendo is going to have to climb out of a big hole to come up with a large quantity of diverse titles.

Re:It is all Relative

[c_forq]

As a college kid, I can tell you $600 is not that doable. Sure there are some people doing it, but there are also people driving Escalades, Hummers, and Porches. Almost everyone I know (except me and a few friends that are much more excited for Nintendo's offering) is pretty much of the opinion the the PS3 is going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread - and then they hear the price, their jaws drop, and they say hell no. Since there will not be a good supply for parents to pick them up for Christmas I think the only people on campus with PS3's will be those with the Escalades, Hummers, and Porches - which is to say very few.

Re:It is all Relative

[Wdomburg]

Retail space for established system is going to depend primarily on installed base. Of course the PS2 gets the bulk of the space. For the current generation of consoles, though, Microsoft is the one with the advantage and thanks to Sony's production problems they'll be dead last after the Wii launches tomorrow.

Re:It is all Relative

[winomonkey]

Just to disagree with you, I am a year and a half since departed from college. I always owned fairly crappy used cars, wore a modest wardrobe, and generally was very careful with my money. However, if there was something especially nice that I wanted to purchase, I would work extra hours, I would save, I would do what I could, and then buy it. While you can make all of the sweeping and generalizing statements about "the typical college student" that you wish, please also acknowledge that there are non-Hummer driving poor college students who still saved up to buy nice things.

To buy a PS3:
-Work 4 extra hours at PT job (38 $/wk)
-Go out to eat one less meal (8 $/wk)
-One less movie a month (2 $/wk)
-One less pack of beer a week (8 $/wk)

That's an easy 56 bucks a week (it wouldn't be hard to minimize pretty much all expenses to push it beyond 75), which would add up in a couple of months. And that is how I bought a nice bike, a PS2, and a computer while still going to school full time (without help from parents in any sense).

Yes, the Escalade kids will have them. But it isn't that big of a stretch to think that someone capable of planning ahead might have done just that, unless you wish to categorize all college students as fiscally irresponsible saps incapable of saving for future purchases.

Development Costs

[wooden pickle]

Developers also probably like the Wii from a financial sense. I R not a game programmer, but it's got to be easier and cheaper to develop for. Madden on the Wii is going to be a completely new experience with extremely low dev costs. All they do is port the gamecube version, polish it up, and add in the new controls. Madden on the PS3 and 360 is also somewhat new, but mainly on account of spending lots of money to make perty new graphics.

Re:Development Costs

[HappySqurriel]

Developers also probably like the Wii from a financial sense. I R not a game programmer, but it's got to be easier and cheaper to develop for. Madden on the Wii is going to be a completely new experience with extremely low dev costs. All they do is port the gamecube version, polish it up, and add in the new controls. Madden on the PS3 and 360 is also somewhat new, but mainly on account of spending lots of money to make perty new graphics.

It really has very little to do with game programmers and when someone starts saying that development costs are effected by the "difficulty of programming for the Cell" or what not you can tell they don't really know what they're talking about; I know you didn't do this, but it is a pet peeve of mine.

The fact is that state of the art computer graphics (almost always) involve increasing the ammount of data (usually through adding a texture) on top of a surface in order to emulate a physical property; for example Normal Maps are just textures full of surface normals that are used to emulate small geometry on a surface, and BDRFs can be used to emulate material properties or micro-geometry of a surface. All of this data that is added to the surface has to be generated by a person (either through texturing or writing a shader) and applied to the surface by a person (usally a texture artist).

What this means is that in order to create a Next Generation game you have to hire many more artists which causes the development costs to skyrocket (currently the FIFA team at EA is larger than 100 people). The Wii allows developers to produce upgraded versions of previous generation graphics which means that development costs are pretty stable. The end result is that Next Generation games on the PS3/Xbox 360 cost 3 to 4 times as much to produce than a Wii game.

Re:Development Costs

[Sancho]

"Add the new controls" is part of the problem, though. We saw from the Nintendo DS that taking old games and slapping on a touch-screen element just feels shoddy and forced. You really have to design the game with that control scheme in mind (or be really brilliant with HCI--something I doubt most game programmers are) to have something that works. I can't tell you how many times I cursed game developers who use the touch screen stupidly when the standard D-pad would have worked much, much better.

I'm beginning to think Sony might win

[hsoft]

Until now, I thought that PS3 would utterly fail, leaving either the wii or xbox in first position (I assumed xbox would be), but the ps3 coverage in mainstream media is just insane. I guess there's some bribery that has been going on. Well, there is also the (artificial?) riots that the media like to cover in the news at 11... Well, we'll see what the wii's coverage in mainstream media will be.

On my part, it will be none of them. I'll try to buy a used GC at some insanely low price (maybe they'll go at 10-15$?) so I can play wind walker. maybe.

Re:I'm beginning to think Sony might win

[rob1980]

Doubt you'll find one that low in price unless it's broken.

Re:I'm beginning to think Sony might win

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

true story, I bought a "broken" xbox off a guy for $5, opened it up, re-soldered the power cable base, then reveled in the glory of a (at the time) $250 gaming machine working perfectly. I was originally buying it just to Frankenstein my other broken one back to life, but who's counting anywat. . .

Re:I'm beginning to think Sony might win

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of the time I bought a "broken" scooter from someone for $15. Apparently the guy just wasn't holding in the hand break when he tried to kick-start it.

Re:I'm beginning to think Sony might win

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, you left out the part where the "guy" was 9 years old.

I want my scooter back.

Re:I'm beginning to think Sony might win

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, some of the coverage I've seen is funny, because the news anchors will talk up the PS3 to lead into the later segment and only briefly mention the Wii will be there too, but when they actually get to the segment, aside from the PS3 sales figures, they end up playing with the Wii the most, talking about the Wii controller, how the controller works with the game, etc.

Controller...

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense to those who like the Wii, but I for one prefer a gamepad over something that requires nothing but motion sensing. Unless they can immerse me enough visually, I'd prefer to play the game NOT be in it.

Re:Controller...

[Thansal]

Heh, this is actualy one of the few reasonable objections to the Wii (the other is "well, I like prety graphics").

I am a nintendo fanboy, I am gettign a Wii, I am stoked about the controlers. However, there is still that nagging doubt that if they don't pull it off perfectly, where you don't have to think about the controller more then the game, then there will be problems.

Some of my reservations were taken away by the fact that Nintendo announced that not all games will use the WiiMote (Smash Bros will use a clasic controller or a NGC controller). So they are not forcing developers to use it when a standard controller works better.

I also got to play around with a Wii last week (nintendo world store), and the controller DOES seem to work from a functional standpoint. It was responsive, it is not that heavy (It is a lighter then a standard controller, however you are holding it in 1 hand generaly), and it does seem to be acurate.

So, only time will tell, and I still am slightly woried, but I think it will prevail.

Re:Controller...

[BitterAndDrunk]

I think even if the controller degenerates, it will still be, in essence, a pointer. And that's pretty damn cool, even if it's not a "swing your sword, round and round now dosido!"

Seriously - it's basicaly mouse-based interfaces on a console. That's good stuff.

Re:Controller...

[Thansal]

yup, that is what I am exited about it. And it isn't just a pointer, it is alot more. The ability to point is just one great feature.

However, what if the detection system is not that great?
Or it bugs out like it did on the early tech demos using Metroid Prime?

However, I am relatively confident that they will not fail. Afterall, they can only make so many powergloves and U-Forces can they make before they get it right?

hehehehehe

Re:Controller...

[chumbucket5001]

I am hoping that the Wii will bring some nice RTS to the console world. I see the the Wii's controller as a couch-mouse. Before I Got a DVR, I was thinking about building a media center PC for my living room and I found a mouse that works much like the Wii's remote. Company of Heroes from the comfort of your couch!

Re:Controller...

[Mortgage.ysp]

Haptic feedback FTW

Let's not forget..

[ACAx1985]

This article fails to mention Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Two weeks was too long to wait for a Wii, so freezing yourself in a Colorado mountain top and hoping to thaw on launch date is the only viable solution. Didn't see them so stoked for a PS3 :)

Re:Let's not forget..

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree, I just can't wait for it!!!

Re:Let's not forget..

[crabpeople]

To be fair though, they shilled for the PSP and it sucked balls.

Price Point?

[Gobiner]

Every time I hear people talking about the cost of a PS3 they always say "price point." Is "price" or "cost" just too dumb sounding?

Re:Price Point?

[pilkul]

"Price point" is a marketing/economics term with a specific meaning somewhat different than just "price". See the Wikipedia entry.

I am not sure if everyone using the term when talking about the PS3 understands the distinction, but anyway it is not a useless term.

Re:Price Point?

[Anonymous Coward]

A "price point" is the cost of an item at a specific moment in time (in these cases, on the launch date). A price is just that, a number.

It becomes a "point" when you look at it statistically or economically to see it's relevance on a larger scale (such as the rates the console prices fall, or value over time).

Price refers to the cost, point refers to time. Pretty simple.

Why would anyone buy a PS3 now?

[ConfusedSelfHating]

The only good launch title is Resistance:Fall of Man. The titles that are on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are better on the Xbox 360. Many of the games that were meant to come out for launch are being pushed back until there is a larger install base. There aren't that many movie titles available for the Blu Ray movie format right now. The PS3 will only get better with age. When there are a larger number of games available and there is a significant price drop, the PS3 may be a worthwhile purchase.

I'm not interested in the Wii, but I understand why people are. After seeing a video of the Wii in action I lost all interest. However a lot of message comments about the same video showed that there were many Wii fans. I think that the Wii will sell very well, I just won't buy one. At $249 with a game, it's a low risk investment in gaming. I may pick one up in a year or two if I see some games that interest me. If I was a Nintendo fan, I would buy one at launch.

It's just a matter of time before I buy an Xbox 360. It's high definition gaming at a much more reasonable price than the PS3. I don't want to watch movies on a console, so Blu Ray isn't very important to me. I am waiting for a significant price drop before I buy one.

Re:Why would anyone buy a PS3 now?

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

holy shit a negative opinion of the Wii on slashdot that doesn't reek of fanboyism??? maybe those nano machines have started invading already. . . http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/1 7/1712229

Re:Why would anyone buy a PS3 now?

[EastCoastSurfer]

I'm with you. I think the next system I buy will be the xbox360 when it has it's first price drop. I saw an article this morning talking about how the ps3 will be a machine that's around for 10 years. I'm guessing right around the time I get bored with the xbox360, I can pick up a ps3 for $200 or less. I'm really not sure what's so big with the ps3 hype right now. It doesn't have much in the way of games right now and is insanely expensive. If I had $1k burning a whole in my entertainment fund pocket I'd probably buy a xbox360 (good base of games and HD) and a wii (new unique play experience) today.

Re:Why would anyone buy a PS3 now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just purchased an XBox 360 yesterday. It has Amazing Graphics and the price won't kill my bank account. It's between PS3 and WII.

I think Microsoft is in a great position right now. I couldn't see myself forking over $600 for PS3 and WII's games seem pretty shitty at 480p. ( I have HDTV)

I'm not a big MS fan, I try to shy away from them whenever I can, but I must say that MS got the XBOX 360 right.

Typing this to you from my PowerBook =)

no rumble

[HelloKitty]

I wont buy the PS3 since it doesnt have rumble now...
that combined with lack luster launch titles (ridge racer is the best???).
and the high price...

I'd take a Wii any day over the ps3...
xbox just did everything right this time.
i used to love ps2.
but they just screwed up the controller this time.

Re:no rumble

[soundvessel]

I wont buy the PS3 since it doesnt have rumble now... that combined with lack luster launch titles (ridge racer is the best???).

The rumble is that big of a deciding factor? It's an unrealistic shaking! I might go so far as to say that that was one reason I waited on all of the last-gen consoles for so long; it seemed like such a lame annoyance. The other big reason was when they added analog sticks to the controllers, but I digress, I've gotten over that.

I've enjoyed some games that used the rumble effectively, but I can't imagine how that's ever a deal breaker.

Well maybe it is.

[LWATCDR]

Developing a game that uses the PS3 fully will cost a small fortune. It is a big complex machine.
Developing a game for the 360 is going to be a little bit cheaper.
Developing a game for the Wii is a lot cheaper!
It isn't a lot different than the Gamecube. Game makers have got to love it. Your old tools and skills transfer. No need to develop massive amounts of HD content. And best of all. Millions of consoles on the market.
Right now the best a PS3 game can hope to do is what, 100,000 units? That and it does look like a lot of fun!

Now what I hope is all 100,000 PS3s hit EBay today and the price plummets to $50!
Have a nice day.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Splab]

I was thinking the same thing - I read an article where someone said he was hopeing the PS3 would pay for all his christmas gifts. I bet alot of people where thinking that, and I bet they are going to get burned...

Re:Well maybe it is.

[squiggleslash]

I have to admit, I still don't really understand the logic of it all. This is an honest question, and I'd be interested to know the answers.

The PS3 is a more powerful machine (as is the X-Box 360. Let's just lump them together because it's not a significant difference between them, I'll refer to the PS360 below.)

What does this imply? Well, it means: it's capable of running anything that will run on the Wii. If you want, you can use the same graphics and end up with something that runs on the PS360 no worse than it runs on the Wii. In some cases, however, you'll get an automatic boost. Run the same algorithms, and they should run faster. This, in turn, can mean it does more work, eg supports the higher resolution.

"Ok", I pretend to hear you cry, "but there's the static bitmaps and stuff." But does producing something that's, say, 4x as many pixels, really need four times as much work to produce? At that stage, aren't you either rendering and tweaking the renders or scanning hand drawn/photographed artwork?

I can understand going from 320x200 to 1024x768 requiring way more work in terms of cleaned up graphics. But going from 640x400 to 1280x1080, or something, presumably isn't going to add such a level of clarity that, say, you're going to have to add whole facial features to characters that you wouldn't have otherwise done.

So why is it that much more expensive to develop games for the PS360 than the Wii?

Re:Well maybe it is.

[soft_guy]

As much as we would like that, the PS3 is a very hot item and the supply is very limited. Those who are lucky enough to grab several are bound to make lots of profit.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Sancho]

When talking about why developers will love it, you forgot:
1) a separate (and wholly unconventional) control style must be developed for multiplatform games
2) lower quality textures for multiplatform games
3) smaller potential markets if you develop solely for the Wii.

One thing we saw in the last console generation was massive cross-platform development. Most of the most successful games appeared on at least two of the three consoles, and sometimes on the PC as well. We saw developers basically shooting for the lowest common denominator (the Gamecube) with maybe a few graphical enhancements for the other platforms (though this wasn't the norm, it did happen on the most popular and anticipated games). Even many "exclusive" games were only exclusive for a short time, and eventually appeared on other platforms (Resident Evil 4, for example).

With Nintendo branching off and 'improving' their console in a different direction from the rest of the players, this is bound to change. The lowest common denominator is simply too low and has a different control scheme from the other players. Yes, Wii is innovative. Yes, it has the potential to turn the gaming industry upside down. But it also has the potential to flop horribly due to a lack of titles, since targetting the PS3/Xbox360/PC is probably going to be much easier than targetting the PS3/Xbox360/PC/Wii. If adding the Wii and Wii-specific features doesn't make sense financially, it won't happen, leaving the Wii in a draught of titles. If companies do develop for all 4 platforms, it's likely that the control scheme on the Wii will be a joke, tacked on simply to make use of the controller, or even simply ignored and requiring a "classic" controller to play, making Wii only slightly better than a Gamecube (given its only slightly better CPU and graphics).

I'm really pulling for the Wii, but I'm being realistic at the same time. There's a very good chance that it will flop. I hope not, as I plan for it to be my only next-gen console. Just try not to buy into the hype too much.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[jZnat]

Well, the dev kits cost more for Xbox360 and PS3 than the Wii SDK does.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[LWATCDR]

The PS3 is going to be a lot more expensive to develop for.
1. The programing model is totally different from anything you have ever done.
2. Textures. It takes artists more time to do a more detailed texture. So what if it is only 5 times bigger? Yes it takes more work. Does it take five times? Maybe not. Will it take at least twice as much time? Probably so.
3. Blue ray! How many plants can press blue ray disks? What about the media costs?

The 360s programing model is a little different but not nearly as revolutionary as the Cell.
The Cell has a huge amount of potential but getting to that is not going to trivial.
The 360 will have the cost of the HD content and a little bit of cost with a slightly different programing model. The big bonus is that a port to of from the PC will be pretty easy.
The PS3 is a lot more complex and probably doesn't have as good of development environment as the 360.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[vega80]

First, the PS3 can handle more content - and not just more content, but more complicated content. It can render more polys, show more characters at the same time, have more animations, show more background objects, etc. To take advantage of this, you need a much larger art team. To program for it, you'll need a larger programming team. Think of the difference between a Formula 1 car and a go kart. You'll not only need a better driver, but also a much larger support staff. Create more realistic characters and making a character animate realistically at much higher poly counts is more difficult, and requires a larger staff. Pixar animation is harder and more time-consuming than what you can do on the PS3, and the content on the PS3 is harder and more time-consuming to make than on the PS2. The second part is, why would a developer go through the trouble to do this? Because people who buy the PS3 will generally expect much better graphics than what's on the Wii/Gamecube. Also, developers who develop for the PS3 will naturally want to push the PS3 - if I have this cool piece of hardware, the artists will ask, "can I make a 5k poly character" instead of a 500 poly character, and programmers will naturally salivate at the possibilities of using programming techniques that weren't possible on previous generation consoles, and this takes a larger staff, because there will be more work involved (at least initially).

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to nitpick, but the lowest common denominator was the PS2, not the GameCube.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[chaoticgeek]

As far as the smaller market for the Wii I think that is a little false. Comparing to the number of PS3s being released compared to the potential Wiis plus the fact that everyone is Wii crazy right now I think that the selling of them will be far greater than the PS3. This would mean more launch games sold, and most likely that people who buy one will continue to play wii games and get more games for it. I know many people that did that with a dreamcast, so even if it fails it still has a great chance to sell games still. But I doubt it will fail.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[SirSlud]

1. Cost of dev kits (you need several, at least, for a large project.) ~20,000$ for PS3 .. ~2000$ for Wii.
2. Programming model for PS3 is much different, and more complex. Multi core = multi thread = more complicated = higher development costs.
3. Your game logic might be the same on gamecube/ps3, but your graphics engine has to be 40% written for the specific console. Thus, writing a game for PS3 and gamecube means you have to write (and support) substancially more engine code. Picking one is much cheaper.
4. At higher resolutions, power, etc, your game assets are much larger, disk space wise. This means your production pipeline has to handle much more data. More disks, more time to save/copy/archive/restore/build the game, more hardware, potentially different pipeline tools for each platform = more money. Larger textures and models means longer everything: open/save/build/etc. Thats time, and time is money.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[rthille]

Yeah, I'm old. Nearly 'get off my lawn old', pushing 40. A friend showed me some games on his PS/2, and he and I grew up playing Apple ][ games together. We avoided passing a compiler class by playing Hellcats or something like that. From what I could tell, the Apple // games had much better playability than his PS/2 games. Sometimes I think I should get my Mac running a Apple // emulator and waste a bunch of time...

Then I realize that that's what Slashdot is for.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[sabernet]

As someone who did a short animation in both standard resolution(720x486) and HD(1024x768) let me tell you that it is a helluva lot more work, requires more hardware and more storage as well as much more detail involved. people paid to get more detail and they expect to see it.

It is for this reason many shows need to hire additional makeup artists and even completely redo sets when HD came around. So yes, a rough looking wall in Standard may just be a photoshop "cloud effect" but in HD, you need the cloud effect, the noise added, some scratches here and there(but well distributed as to not tile funny), etc... Equally, you have to streamline how many of those superlarge textures get fed into VRAM at one time, etc...

It is a huge huge shift from Standard to HD.

Also, devkit costs: The 360's dev costs aren't bad for a console. The Wii is fantastic for a console(2000$ to get started with hardware and all, however I omit manpower in that figure), while the PS3's costs are exorbitant. I remember reading something from Gamasutra a while back about how it would cost you 12 mil just to get STARTED on a competitive PS3 game all things considered. As a reference, Final Fantasy 7 cost 14 mil back in the day and that was considered a supermassive budget.

Add to that that any company with a GC devkit can get started now with just a few addons and you're set.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Sancho]

You're only talking about launch numbers, though. The Playstation has a huge fanbase of loyal fans and a good number of fairly exclusive and wildly popular franchises (Final Fantasy XIII, Metal Gear Solid 4 are two examples--although there have been FF and MGS games for other systems, the latest sequels have been Sony-only, I believe).

The Wii will probably be quite popular, but if developers can't sell it early, support might die off as fans stop buying crappy games.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[paanta]

Meanwhile, the games that have seen the most play time on my PS2 are Rez and Katamari Damacy, neither of which had shiny graphics or awesome physics models. Again, novelty seems like the key to making a good game. I don't buy new games so I can relive the same plot and game play over and over and over again.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[stunt_penguin]

Hellcats! Hellcats! Hellcats! Hellcats! Hellcats! Hellcats! Hellcats! Hellcats! Hellcats!

I was just looking that up last week in a nostalgic mood.

Lord almighty what a game- I used to play it obsessively at school when I was 13 or 14, even sneaking in at lunch time to play. I remember doing stuff like seeing if I could reach the ground before a bomb I dropped( I could, given altitude), flying under that bridge in that mission where you have to bomb it, seeing what airspeed I could get up to in a dive.

Then the Leyte gulf missions came out. Shooting bombers out of the air with rockets has never been so much fun :D

I don't think anyone has produced a game with a better polycount:fun ratio.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Chosen Reject]

There's enough kiddie games already

I'm assuming here that you mean that as an insult. If not, move on to my next paragraphs. If so, it's a pretty weak one. I don't know what one would describe as a kiddie game, but I hope you don't define it as silly graphics and no blood. Otherwise Chess, Poker, Go, Tetris, Pac-Man, etc., etc., etc., would all be considered kiddie by you even though they are some of the most popular games ever. Not to mention that Resident Evil and Eternal Darkness aren't what I would call suitable for kiddies. But then you probably think Wind Waker is kiddie because it has cartoony graphics, rather than base it on its gameplay. If a game is fun (I assume that you think kiddie games are not fun) for you for any other reason than gameplay, then you're not much of a reliable source for game information.

They replaced a simple controller with one that is much more complex and will probably be more intimidating to "casual" gamers than the classic "D Pad", and say that they hope to outsell the competition by appealing to lots of "non-gamers."

Have you ever tried to get someone who is not a gamer to play with a D Pad controller? It sucks. If you are not used to D-Pads they are hardly what I would call intuitive. Tell someone to play tennis with a D-Pad and then tell them they can play Tennis with the Wii-mote by making the same movements as if they were playing it in real life and see which one they would rather use. Tell someone to point your onscreen weapon at the enemy and fire with the D-Pad and then tell them to do the same thing with the Wii-mote, only their actions onscreen will mimic the real life actions they take with the Wii-mote and see which one they would rather use. I don't know how you could NOT see that the Wii-mote is much more intuitive.

similar technologies have been attempted in video arcades for years, and "gimmick" controllers usually don't sustain all that much interest

But a console where the "gimmick" was in every box has never been tried before. Now everyone who writes a game for the console knows that the player has at least one Wii-mote so every game developer can develop for it.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[ShaunDon]

Sorry dude, it's even worse than you thought. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_telev isionWikipedia, two standards for HD are 720p/i (1280x720 px) and 1080p/i (1920x1080 px). The Blue-ray DVDs are specifically designed for 1080p video, so you're talking about a 300% frame size increase.

I work in computer graphics and true high definition scares the crap out of me and my current workstation.

Shaun

Re:Well maybe it is.

[LWATCDR]

Ever notice that "None kiddie games" usually means what 15 year old boys want?

Re:Well maybe it is.

[tukkayoot]

In addition to the good points that Chosen Reject already has made, I'll address this point:

So, the message here is that the PS3 sucks and the Wii is good because the PS3 can handle more content?

The fact that the PS3 can handle more content is a good thing. The fact that it's difficult and expensive to unlock the console's full potential is somewhat of a drawback. Developers will be compelled to create the most detailed character models, textures, animations, etc. possible, because they can, and they assume players will enjoy it. And players will enjoy it, but it's coming to the point where we're seeing diminishing returns.

This is why you see so many derivative, unoriginal titles these days. When publishers invest in games like this, they don't tend to want to try something new and exciting, they want to stick with what's tried and true. Game-play might be enhanced or changed somewhat to appeal to a broader audience, but game design will be influenced by publishers wanting to produce a "safe" title.

That's not entirely a bad thing, a game with great graphics that's derived from another great game can still be an awesome experience.

But it's not exactly what Nintendo is trying to encourage with the Wii. With the Wii, we'll probably see a lot more experimentation, more "niche" games, etc. A forced emphasis on game-play because the graphics won't be as dazzling as the best of what you'd see on the other consoles.

I won't say that the PS3 sucks or that the Wii owns all, but that's why the apparently weakness of the Wii can be interpreted as a good thing.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[LWATCDR]

"support might die off as fans stop buying crappy games."
Frankly the games I saw on the PS3 where pretty crappy. I just wasn't all that impressed.
From the publishers point of view if Sony doesn't get a bunch out on the market soon they will be hurting.
The Wii on the other hand looks like it will have a lot of consoles out for Christmas.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[HappySqurriel]

I honestly don't think you get it ...

There is nothing wrong with that but I'm reasonably sure you're going to be confused by how popular the Wii ends up being.

Of the 100,000,000+ consoles that are sold in the world the vast majority of them are sold to casual gamers and "non-gamers." Graphics don't really matter to these people, HD doesn't matter to these people, and amazing sound doesn't matter to these people because if it did the Playstation 2 would have lost out to either the Gamecube or the XBox. You're probably all about the Photo-realistic graphics but most people only want a game that is fun to play for a little while.

The main thing about the Wii is that it is a major advancement in an area where so little advancement has happened. No one disputes that current user interfaces are lacking; consider how poorly First person shooters control on a controller, how poorly fighting games work on a keyboard, and how many buttons you'd need to perform any act in WoW. The Wiimote may not be perfect, and may end up being lacking and used in gimicky ways, but the same could be said about the early 3D games; no advancement can happen until someone takes the first step and the Wiimote seems to be a reasonable step in the right direction.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[c_forq]

We are only talking of launch because that is what exists. If on January first Sony has sold 1,000,000 Playstations and Nintendo has sold 10,000,000 Wii's then developers will flock to the Wii, since pretty much EVERY Playstation owner would have to buy a big budget game to get it to break even while massive profits will be possible on the Wii. This will lead to a flood of games to the Wii that may cause a lower adoption rate of the PS3. Frankly, as it looks now I think if Metal Gear Solid 3 doesn't move massive amounts of console PS3 might get the fewest games this go-around (adding to that Nintendo and Microsoft have their own studios that consistently pump out great games while Sony is completely dependent on Square and Konami).

Re:Well maybe it is.

[LWATCDR]

"1. You don't know the programing model. It like most development tools is not bare metal programing, but rather a high level language + gui toolset"
We are taking about games here not writing a program to catalog your DVDs in visual basic!
I suggest you go and read the volumes of information on programing the cell on the IBM website before you start spouting off.
Also code doesn't optimize it's self for the Cell. At least not yet. There are some basic optimizers for it in a beta an GCC and a lot more in IBMs compiler but to get the most performance out of a cell system you are really got to have to work hard.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Sancho]

As far as the smaller market for the Wii I think that is a little false. Comparing to the number of PS3s being released compared to the potential Wiis plus the fact that everyone is Wii crazy right now I think that the selling of them will be far greater than the PS3.

There will be more PS3s released. The PS2 has pretty good market penetration, and there were shortages at launch there, too. Same with the 360 (there are now over 6million sold, according to CNET). http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11 067 shows that the Gamecube consistently undersold the PS2 and Xbox, despite launching later than those consoles (though the XBox only launched about 4 days earlier in the US). Unless I'm misremembering, the Gamecube wasn't plagued by quite the shortage problems that the PS2 was, and I have no idea about the XBox numbers at launch. Nevertheless, this shows that launch statistics may not correlate to overall success of the platform.

The problem I see is that this generation is unfolding much like the previous one, except that Nintendo has taken steps to significantly differentiate its console from the rest. It could be that this will prove to be a fantastic move, or it could be that it divides the market and causes Nintendo to lose out. Sheer numbers won't tell the tale, though, as I've shown.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Tim Browse]

the PS3's costs are exorbitant. I remember reading something from Gamasutra a while back about how it would cost you 12 mil just to get STARTED on a competitive PS3 game all things considered.

Don't believe all the bullshit you read. PS3 devkits are expensive, but 12 mil (I assume you mean 12 million dollars) is ludicrous.

One of the main problems for PS development is the quality of Sony development tools, but also, let's not forget that when the PS2 was coming, the head of Square announced that he thought there were maybe 5 games development companies in the world that would be capable of making a PS2 game, because it was so complex/expensive. There's a lot of bullshit out there.

But then, I'm still waiting for the PS2's 'Emotion Engine' to give game characters real emotion. I'm sure that in same way, the PS3's Cell processor will deliver awesome physics and AI in PS3 games, and not just be used to shore up the bottlenecks in the rest of the architecture and push more polygons.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Golias]

Of the 100,000,000+ consoles that are sold in the world the vast majority of them are sold to casual gamers and "non-gamers."

That's the most ridiculous statement I've heard all month.

Anybody who spends hundreds of dollars on a machine for the sole purpose of playing games is, by definition, a gamer.

Non-gamers do not buy game machines. They might play a simple game on their phone or PC, but they are not going to spend money to hook up a special box to their TV set, then spend $50 a pop beyond that for games, and learn how to drive a Mario Kart with a pair of sticks. They just won't. You've been suckered by Nintendo marketing and astroturfing if you honestly think they will.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Machtyn]

A quick search on ebay seems to indicateabout 13,000+ consoles, many (first 11 pages sorted by lowest price) with a starting point of $1.00 (+-). Although, sorted by "ending first", you get a range from $1300 to $3000 (with the latter having 40 some-odd bids). $2000 seems to be the average.

I was also going to say, with no real back up, that there is a good reason the game industry is shying away from Sony. You can't jerk around your customer, your content creator, and your staff too much or they will jump ship. But my backup is in the headline summary. Sony seems to be arrogant, and apparently its arrogancy is not just toward its consumer. (Everquest anyone?)

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Chosen Reject]

Oh yes. Being able to say "I don't play kiddie games" is the new machismo.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[lovswr]

You sir, are now my slashdot hero. I too, am pushing 40. Remember tying programs (PEEK or POKE) out of the back of Computer Gazzette for the C64. I would spend many days typing (sometimes just to make a mistake at the end) just for a few minutes of glorious gameplay. Remember intellivision? For sheer gameplay, that football game is hard to beat. Oh yes, soemthing like Zork would make the fanbois of today retroactively explode.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[drsquare]

Developing a game for the Wii is a lot cheaper!

Developing for the wiimote will add a lot of complication to game design.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[ebyrob]

No one's hacked the PS3 or 360 to run Wii games. Even if they did, it'd be doubtful they'd run at full speed since emulation is quite a bit slower than native. Plus, it'd be illegal and violate the DMCA and all that jazz.

Finally, the Wii has a (potentially) superior input device. So even if you could provide full speed emulation of the Wii, you wouldn't get to use a Wiimote, which is likely going to ruin many of the games. If this new input device turns out to be nearly as big a revolution as the HDTV is to output, then Nintendo is going to be in a really really good market position very shortly.

Adding HDTV capability to the next Nintendo console (or possibly even the Wii itself) is going to be very easy. Competing with the Wiimote without violating any patents is going to be very hard.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Stormwatch]

Buying and using a game machine does not make one a gamer; just as one who listens to Ozzy because of that crappy MTV show is not a rocker, unless he takes the time to actually learn about rock. Anyone who thinks videogame == PlayStation 2 (and there are tons of people like that) is not a true gamer. One has to know about the history of the gaming industry, and the main currently available systems. Otherwise we're talking about a "weekend gamer", at most.

Now get off my lawn!

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Stormwatch]

Don't believe all the bullshit you read. PS3 devkits are expensive, but 12 mil (I assume you mean 12 million dollars) is ludicrous.

He clearly meant the whole game budget, not the devkit. A little googling gave me these numbers:

* Wii Devkit ........ $2,000
* X360 Devkit ..... $10,000
* PS3 Devkit ...... $20,000

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Wdomburg]

The problem I see is that this generation is unfolding much like the previous one, except that Nintendo has taken steps to significantly differentiate its console from the rest.

Last generation Sony beat Microsoft and Nintendo to market by a year. This time Microsoft beat Sony and Nintendo by a year.

Last generation the Sony and Microsoft released at the same price, $100 more than Nintendo. This generation Sony's base price is $200 more than Microsoft and $250 more than Nintendo.

Last generation Sony sold 900,000 units it's first week in Japan. This generation Sony only managed to ship 80,000 units.

Last generation Sony sold 500,000 units at launch in the United States. This generation... well, Sony claimed they were shipping 400,000 but retailers were given last minute reductions so who knows what the actual number is.

Last generation Sony sold 500,000 units in Europe the first year. This generation they had to cancel their European launch this year.

Last generation Sony sold 100,000 units in Australia the first year. This generation they haven't even scheduled one.

Last generation Nintendo had the worst launch portfolio. This generation they have the best.

I could go on, but I think it's pretty obvious that this generation is considerably different than the prior one. Sure Sony had production problems last generation as well, but they still managed to ship more units in the launch window than their own competition at the time (the Dreamcast). By the time Microsoft and Nintendo made it to markey they not only had solved their production problems, but had a solid installed base.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[jpardey]

So you predict that the next gaming revolution will be on graphing calculators?

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Knuckles]

making Wii only slightly better than a Gamecube (given its only slightly better CPU and graphics).

While saying that graphics-wise Wii is a match for PS3 or 360 would be lying, "slightly better" than the Gamecube is not true either.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[CastrTroy]

I'm confused. Do the developers have to use Blu-Ray discs or can the blue-ray drives read DVDs? If you only have 9.8 gigs of content, then why not just press your game out on a DVD. If it doesn't read DVDs, then I guess your point does stand.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[7Prime]

Yeah, I love that. I'm sorry, but the PS3 is an adolecent game system. Its target demographic is the 15 year old boy who says, "oooh, Blood and Boobies! COOL!" I may be exadurating a bit, but I've seen a lot of evidence to this effect, and their marketing seems to match up: "If I had a cop car, I would drive all over the world and get all the ladies, even the ugly ones!" Calling it a "mature" system is along the same lines as calling "Scary Movie" a mature film, because it shows blood and boobs.

Nintendo, on the other hand, tends to cut a big hole out of the adolecent demographic and market to kids under 10, and adults. Of course, a 12 year old wouldn't want to be caught dead playing something that could be played by an 8 year old, so suddenly the GameCube is "gay" or "teh suck" or "for the kiddies". You won't find many 30 year old gamers calling the GameCube or Wii "kiddie".

Now, look, I know there are MANY exceptions, there's a lot of amazing games out for the PS2 (Okami, Suikoden V, FF12, Katamari Damaci, etc.), and I don't doubt the PS3 will have its share of gems, but the ones that really tend to push the system in the US and define its overall persona tend to be aimed at the 10-17 year old sweetspot: GTA, and an endless suply of first person shooters, football games, and zombie killers.

We need to start talking about games not in terms of age, but in terms sophistication. No, I'm not talking about $1500 bottles of wine, or going to French film festivals, I'm talking about little things like defining a unique atmosphere in which to experience, having a story that isn't utterly cliche, gameplay that makes you think while you're being entertained, and without being pretentious and sophomoric (like most Japanese RPGs, sadly). Zelda may be innocent and may have it's cliches, however it knows exactly what it is, and never attempts to prove itself as being anything else, while having fantasticly original gameplay elements.

It's no coincidence that the same terms, reviered by gamers, "Mature" and "Hardcore", are commonly used to describe pornography. Not that there's anything wrong with porn, but if I want porn, I'll go get me some porn, thank you.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Monsuco]

Why not just stick a cheap old x86 (or better, X86_64) chip into the thing, use OpenGL and the like? That is easy to develop on.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[DrXym]

2. Textures. It takes artists more time to do a more detailed texture. So what if it is only 5 times bigger? Yes it takes more work. Does it take five times? Maybe not. Will it take at least twice as much time? Probably so.

PCs, 360s need those same textures too so any game that EA (for example) put out on every platform known to man already has that requirement. Besides when the PS2, XBox & Gamecube platforms start to wither (as they are already), the Wii will be the odd man out.

The PS3 is a lot more complex and probably doesn't have as good of development environment as the 360.

The PS3 development kit is integrated into MS Dev Studio (see here) and of course most of the code will be written against game APIs (opengl, havok, physx etc.) or generic program logic. So I doubt in practice that development is significantly different whether you're working on a 360 project or a PS3 project. Sure, SPE specific programming might be different and even hard at first, but I expect its not significantly harder than learning Altivec, SSE, COM (under DirectX), GPU shaders, DSPs or any of the other things that someone coding games would come across.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[I'm Don Giovanni]

According to what I've read at various video game sites and forums (such as GAF), Xbox 360's Gears of War cost lest than half to make as did Wii's Red Steel, both of which are shooters. Gears of War blows Red Steel away. I think you're underestimating Microsoft's skill at providing better developer tools than their competition, which lowers development cost. Also, Xbox 360 uses DirectX, which many are already familiar with.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Ginger Unicorn]

one thing that just occurred to me is that if a dev wanted to make some more sales, it wouldnt be hard to backport a Wii game to Gamecube (controller notwithstanding).

Re:Well maybe it is.

[cgenman]

But a console where the "gimmick" was in every box has never been tried before. Now everyone who writes a game for the console knows that the player has at least one Wii-mote so every game developer can develop for it.

Shoulder buttons, the analog joystick, and the dual shock were all seen as gimmicks when launched. Come to think of it, so was the d-pad. They did pretty well, and became the standard. Others, like Sega's VMU (game-playing memory card), or Jaguar's number pad with overlays, did not.

So yes, there is quite a bit of prescident.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[porcupine8]

They replaced a simple controller with one that is much more complex

If you think that current controllers are simple, you haven't tried to teach a middle-aged woman to play a modern video game. When my MIL was in town, she was watching my husband and I play Animal Crossing, and within that the Wario's Woods NES puzzle game. We tried to show her how to play Wario's Woods - which only uses a couple buttons because it was designed for the NES controller. It was extremely difficult for her to remember what to press for what action, and it was only the GC's nice button layout (that makes A much larger and easier to press) that made it possible at all. If she had to play a game that used all the buttons, she'd just give up.

What's that? You don't care if middle-aged women can play video games? Well, then, that's the difference between you and Nintendo.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Yvan256]

Others, like Sega's VMU (game-playing memory card), or Jaguar's number pad with overlays, did not.

I hope you meant to say "or Intellivision's number pad with overlays".

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Golias]

Buying and using a game machine does not make one a gamer

Actually, that's exactly what it does.

A "gamer" is a person who plays games. A person who spends more than the price of an expensive lunch on game-playing is clearly somebody who fits that definition. There are millions of people out there who do not.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[KlomDark]

Dude, it's an Apple ][, not an Apple //. Oh wait, you're one of those Apple //e guys. What a n00b. The Apple ][ and ][+ were the shit, the //e was teh ghey!

*snork*

Re:Well maybe it is.

[rthille]

Actually, it depended on who's machine we played on. Mine was a //e (with 512k add-on memory), and my friends was the ][+ with the shift key wire in place (I think). My friend later got a //gs. What a joke!

Re:Well maybe it is.

[mink]

I seem to remember COLECO systems had them as well.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Golias]

If you think that current controllers are simple, you haven't tried to teach a middle-aged woman to play a modern video game.

First of all, I know lots of middle-aged women who play console games. Thanks for the chauvinism, jerk.

Secondly, if you think a middle-aged woman (or anyone else) who is confused by a D-pad is even going to pick up and attempt a Wii-mote, you are seriously deluded. The Wii will sell... to the same Mario-kart addicts that bought the Game Cube the last time around.

The idea that non-gamers are suddenly going to be throwing cartoon mushrooms around because of a quirky new controller is pure fantasy.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[porcupine8]

Yes, I'm an incredibly chauvinistic 27-year-old woman. What I said probably equally applies to middle-aged men and women, and to 80-year-olds, and to the few teenagers who have never touched a console game in their life. My experience just happened to be with my MIL a couple weeks ago, and she's a middle-aged woman. Yes, there are some who can play console games just fine - but what percentage? I defy you to show me a statistic stating that middle-aged women play console games as often as twentysomethings.

Second, part of my point was that the GC controller is not just a D-pad. It's far more complex than that, so even though you only need one d-pad/analog stick plus two buttons to play Wario's Woods, you have to figure out which of the many items on the controller are the relevant ones. That's hard for someone who's never touched a game in their life.

I probably should have added a second example: A few years ago, we brought Crazy Taxi (I think it was on Dreamcast) along with a steering wheel + pedals setup over to my 70-year-old grandmother's house. Although she wouldn't even touch the games that used a regular controller, she gave CT a try and had no problem using the wheel and pedal controls. Her only downfall was that she was trying to drive well and got upset whenever she knocked over another car. But she got a hang of the control, etc much much faster than my MIL did with Wario's Woods and the GC controller, despite a much greater overall level of technophobia.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Yvan256]

Still, the Intellivision was the first system with such overlays, the Coleco Vision simply copied it, just like the SEGA Master System copied the gamepad from the NES.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Golias]

I'm assuming here that you mean that as an insult. If not, move on to my next paragraphs.

Actually, I meant it as a throw-away cheap shot that had nothing to do with my main point, but Wii fanboys are hypersensitive enough that you all seemed to zero in on it.

If so, it's a pretty weak one. I don't know what one would describe as a kiddie game, but I hope you don't define it as silly graphics and no blood.

Thanks for putting words in my mouth so you can knock down a straw man, ass.

Otherwise Chess, Poker, Go, Tetris, Pac-Man, etc., etc., etc., would all be considered kiddie by you even though they are some of the most popular games ever.

Here it goes. I observe that many of Nintendo's biggest hits look like digitized Fisher Price toys with nursery-rhyme-sounding music tracks and a level of simplicity which is CLEARLY targeted at 9-year olds, and therefore I must be a teenager who craves blood and gore in all things and thinks Poker and Go are "kiddie" games. How arrogant are you???

Not to mention that Resident Evil and Eternal Darkness aren't what I would call suitable for kiddies.

Wait... I thought we considered games like that the sort of thing which has no redeeming value, and games where plumers jump over barrels and throw mushrooms at really cute monsters is what REALLY appeals to adults. Which is it?

But then you probably think Wind Waker is kiddie because it has cartoony graphics, rather than base it on its gameplay.

Never played it, so I couldn't say. I googled it. Apparantly it's yet another Zelda game, but this time looking like the animation from the really crappy post-"Lion King" Disney movies. Maybe I'll try it out after I snap up a Gamecube for $20 while all the fanboys are spending two weeks of lunch money on their precious Wii.

If a game is fun (I assume that you think kiddie games are not fun)

Again... never said anything of the sort.

for you for any other reason than gameplay, then you're not much of a reliable source for game information.

Nor are knee-jerk fanboys.

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Golias]

You won't find many 30 year old gamers calling the GameCube or Wii "kiddie".

37, and my half-joking use of the word "kiddie" is what kicked off this discussion in the first place (and also singularly got me down-modded as a troll by reactionaries like you.)

Re:Well maybe it is.

[Chosen Reject]

Boy, talk about hypersensitive. If you didn't mean it as an insult I said to skip to the next part. You only replied to that part of my post, so I guess you did mean for it to be more than just a cheap shot. You have some reading comprehension problems though if you think I was putting words in your mouth. Yes I did make assumptions, but I made it clear that they were assumptions and should be taken as such.

By the way, I'm not much of a fanboy. I bought a gamecube only a year ago and still only have three games for it, two of which I got with the console itself. I have never owned a console previous to that, and don't plan on owning any more at this point.

In either case, calm down.

Wii vs PS3

[porkThreeWays]

I think the wii is going to be badass and I'm personally going to buy one. However, I think the wii will be fighting for the 2nd spot on the big three totem pole and not 1st. I just don't know enough hard core gamers that are excited about the wii. I've noticed that many of the hardcore gamers I know are satisfied with the idea of a system that offers nothing more than better graphics than the old system. The wii is radically different. I don't think they really even want to have to raise their arms to use the wiimote. I love nintendo and I think the wii will be badass, but I just don't see them capturing the hardcore audience.

The best they can hope for is getting the general public that normally don't play video games to play the wii. Most people find xbox and playstation controllers confusing and cumbersome. Maybe the wiimote will deliver a more natural style of play with a lower learning curve, hence a lower barrier to playing games. However, hardcore gamers (and even moderate gamers) are pretty used to xbox and playstation style controllers and will probably find it harder to get used to the wii controller. I don't think they will get much of the hardcore and moderate gamer market. Maybe they can become the ipod of the video game world this generation?

Re:Wii vs PS3

[tuffy]

The Wii will be either first or third. The PS3 and 360 are competing for the same hardcore gamer audience. Those people want to play more refined versions of the same games they're playing now. They might also buy the Wii, but they're not the Wii's target audience.

The Wii is aiming at the non-hardcore who want something easier to get into and without an intimidating controller loaded with buttons and control sticks. If Nintendo can deliver to these people, it'll easily surpass both the 360 and PS3 much like the DS blew past the PSP. If that audience is too small or doesn't buy into the system, the Wii won't get out of third place.

Re:Wii vs PS3

[freeweed]

You do realize that "hardcore gamers" haven't been the largest market segment for a loooooong time now, right?

Assuming the Wii does end up appealing to the general public, it will end up in the #1 spot simply because that's 95% of the market.

Re:Wii vs PS3

[Billly Gates]

I played teh Wii at a Gametstop in california. The wiimote rocks! Its for hardcore gamers as well and you can buy the standard gamecube controller for it as well. What is going to take it off are the amount of titles for it. Assuming it makes #1 the title base is expected to grow to 60 by years end.

Also the wiimote makes it difficult for hardcore games too because reaction time and angle are important in using it. It will vary on what you are playing. WIth the ps2 and gc I feel the point of most games is to hit the right combinations of buttons at a very fast speed. With this I can focus on using my arm and focusing on winning and not memorizing arkane buttons at the fastest speed possible like in mortal Kombat. Yes, I know that game is 10 years old but I began to hate console games after playing as it became the new thing with console makers overloading their controllers with bottons. It was dumb and pointless.

Games like NFL sports title and Mario Kart will rock on this!

Re:Wii vs PS3

[Tainek]

You forget that the hardcore gamers are 1% of the overall gaming market, if nintendo sells to its targeted demographic, then it will be n1 , and not by a few sales, but by many hundreds of thousands of sales

Look at the DS, it didnt cater to the Hardcore market like the PSP did, and the sales figures speak for themself

Re:Wii vs PS3

[voxel]

I don't think you win the market financially from the hard-core gamers. You win it from the rest of the population, which far out numbers the hard-core gamers.

"Hard-core gamers" by defintion can't imply mass market, because then they wouldn't be "hard core", they would just be "Average gamers".

Win the average gamer over, take the #1 Spot.

One could argue the "Hard-core gamers"'s machine is a PC gaming rig, not a silly console.

Re:Wii vs PS3

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be a hardcore PC gamer, now I'm a moderate PC gamer. I've tried the consoles but haven't gotten an interest in them specifically because of the controllers (N64 was OK for goldeneye but I just have too much trouble using my thumbs to steer). My kids (two teenage boys whom are hardcore gamers and one daughter old enough to play games is a moderate gamer) like both the PC and consoles but they are completely stoked about the Wii (as am I, I can hardly wait to stand in line to get one!) For my household the Wii will definitely get our gaming cash (along with the PC, I still love mouse and joystick control of FPSers)

Re:Wii vs PS3

[rinkjustice]

Hardcore gamers usually buy more than one console, and since the 360 and the PS3 are one in the same, and in due time, they'll pick up the Wii too because it's relatively inexpensive and unique.

Are you saying

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

That the PS3 is going to cry Wii Wii Wii all the way home?

This little 360 went to market,
This would have been camper stayed home
This Launch date we ate Pringels all night,
This for a PS3 but there were none.
This little game system cried Wii Wii Wii all the way home.

A DW original.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[Anonymous Coward]

And then an AC comes along and posts his high and mighty developer opinion on Slashdot and we are supposed to lap it up? You just contradicted yourself. Fuck off.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[Anonymous Coward]

The vast,vast,vast majority of of console developers are buying PS3s.

Speaking as a reader of thechaosengine, bollocks. There is apparently one good game for PS3; I'm looking forward to several on the Wii. The first party titles alone are worth it. Admittedly various surveys might be biased because in many countries the PS3 won't even be coming out this year.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[HappySqurriel]

The fact of the matter is the vast,vast,vast majority of console developers don't post online - it's simply not in our culture to do so. Never have and probably never will.

An AC pretending to be a vidogame developer ... how original ...

So Mr Game Developer why do you need a 4 dimentional matrix to store transformations in a 3 dimentional game? What size of matrix do you need for a 2 dimentional game?

The vast,vast,vast majority of of console developers are buying PS3s. Especially with the whole Linux development stuff to go with the amazingly powerful hardware

Not to be blunt, why would any developer spend $600 to have a linux system whey you can do (pretty much) exactly the same thing with a $200 PC?

Most of us make very good money and have very good home media equipment and are already starting to pickup BluRay movies.

100% proof that you are not a game developer ...
I used to be one, now make about three times as much money as a independant contracting web developer; game developers are paid poorly, and have little time to watch movies because they are worked to death ...

Re:Well... or Why I Stopped Waiting

[WillAffleckUW]

Also, would you honestly think that would fly with a paying audience? I highly doubt it.

Exactly. For example, my local Fred Meyer has 3 PS3 consoles on launch day (hah!) and 70 Wii consoles two days later on launch day.

Waiting in line for the PS3 - waste of time.

Waiting in line for a Wii - lots of fun, friends, and you can pick up the 1GB memory chips while you wait for 12:01 to roll around Saturday night!

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[L7_]

seriously, unless you log in, you are just a paid sony astroturfer.

It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

There are stores that sell consoles. You can buy a Wii. You can buy a PS3. You can buy an Xbox 360. You can buy all three or just buy a discounted PS2. All of these products will still be available in two, three, four or more years time (except maybe the PS2). Why does everyone have this obsession with X being the best or Y being the winner? Just go out and buy what makes you happy. Years ago I bought a Nintendo 64. Everyone said it was a flop. Countless articles today still claim it was a flop. But guess what? I never noticed, I just played Super Mario 64 and Goldeneye and I was happy. I can understand why this all matters if your 401(k) or pension portfolio is dominated by game company stock. But otherwise, just get out there and have fun! I know I will. (Probably on a Wii ;-)

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[The MAZZTer]

My sentiments exactly. I'd give you a mod point if I had one.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but what if you'd bought an N-gage or Gizmondo? The N64 was far from a flop, it just came second. Some consoles really do fail.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow a note of unbiased logic on Slashdot. Maybe you need to post on another forum.
 
Play games that you find fun?!? you're losing me, I just can't grasp that, it's supposed to be what company do I think that in the future they will have political issues I disagree with. your supposed to adopt the leanings of one, two or three crowds and stick with that. Don't wait for all the consoles and there games to come out, make your life long decision on which is best based on the speculations of forum writers on game sites who haven't seen the games either.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[elcid73]

well said. I bought a used gamecube in the last 6 months and have been enjoying it quite a bit with my 5 year old son. although...I have noticed there's nothing comparable to Gran Turismo, (although I haven't looked too hard).

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Just use a little common sense. If you buy from a proven console manufacturer, and you have a feel for the kind of games that company produces, you can afford to preorder a console. If you buy from a company with no track record in the games industry, you need to wait to see what games come out before buying. I'm talking about a diferent issue. In 10 years time someone will probably declare that the PS3 was trounced by the Wii, or vice versa, and yet there will be countless happy customers for both consoles.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[JohnSearle]

I'm incredibly sorry to say that I have some disagreement with what you said...

This is not merely about your selection of what makes you happy, and here's why:
. People have limited funds, and therefore cannot make multiple system purchases.
. The choice of a single system has to be an informed choice, and these articles, especially ones presented by supposed informed sources, aid in making this choice.
. A system with two great games might be good for some, but others like variety, and a flopped system doesn't support the same level of variety.
. Even the probability of getting two great games depends upon the number of games produced. The more games produces, the greater the chance of getting a hit game.
. Game manufacturers tend to focus more on the popular system, so game variety (and sheers numbers) depends on popularity. Therefore, in choosing a popular system you are more likely to get what you're hoping for.
. These articles aid in increasing hype, and therefore popularity, of the particular systems.
. And a final point, before I lazily give up on writing this, is that buying any product supports the further manufacturing of similar products. These articles, and these underlying discussions, aid towards more informed purchases.

I know I'm probably missing some points, but I think I've at least given a partial rebuttal. Purchasing is not merely about filling a whim, we are collectively directing the industries. That should be kept in mind.

- John

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I'm horrified to hear that you disagree with me, but maybe we can find some common ground before things degenarate into an orgy of death and mutilation.

. People have limited funds, and therefore cannot make multiple system purchases.

If you have limited funds you should spend wisely. I suggest waiting to see what games appear for a console before buying it.

. The choice of a single system has to be an informed choice, and these articles, especially ones presented by supposed informed sources, aid in making this choice.

I suggesting trutsing what you see on sale rather than comments by 'informed' sources.

. A system with two great games might be good for some, but others like variety, and a flopped system doesn't support the same level of variety.

If it matters to you, you should wait and see what kind of games start appearing for your console.

. Even the probability of getting two great games depends upon the number of games produced. The more games produces, the greater the chance of getting a hit game.

Why not wait for the hit game to appear before committing yourself to vaporware?

. Game manufacturers tend to focus more on the popular system, so game variety (and sheers numbers) depends on popularity. Therefore, in choosing a popular system you are more likely to get what you're hoping for.

The best way to judge popularity of a console is to wait and see how many people buy it.

. These articles aid in increasing hype, and therefore popularity, of the particular systems.

Now we get closer to the truth. These articles aren't about informed comment. They're noise generated by people on one 'side' or another trying to hype their preferred console.

. And a final point, before I lazily give up on writing this, is that buying any product supports the further manufacturing of similar products. These articles, and these underlying discussions, aid towards more informed purchases.

Again, you're indicating that the content of these kinds of articles is completely irrelevant. They're purely about making noise in favor of your preferred console.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[JohnSearle]

Well it would appear that most of your rebuttals centre on the argument that waiting is better. Although this might be true, most people don't wish to wait the time it takes to determine which console will best suit their needs. This may take months, or even years. So impatience has to be reconciled with correct purchasing.

As for this article being pure hype and mere noise generation... It appears to be coming from a third party (Gamasutra), with (hopefully) little ties to Nintendo (although I do realize advertising revenues may be tied with this). This third party has went around to the actual game manufacturers (EA, etc.)who will be producing games for all three systems, and thus have no major affiliations. It would seem to me that an article produced with little ties to either side, is most likely not purely a noise generating article. Although I wouldn't argue that some of them most probably are.

I believe that in most news there are at least some relevant facts to be had... You just have to be wary what you buy (pun intending, thank you).

- John

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[Joe Snipe]

+3 informative? "I'd mod you up if I could" is now informative?

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[theskipper]

Excellent point. I'd mod you up if I could.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[poot_rootbeer]

"Why does everyone have this obsession with X being the best or Y being the winner?"

Because the console that is "the winner" will always be the one for which the most game titles will be released, therefore improving the odds that it will be the one for which the best game titles will be released.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[voxel]

People are afraid they are making the wrong choice. They latch onto one idea, then try to get the rest to follow them. This ensures the longevity of the product if it has a big following, versus if they pick the wrong one and don't try to get friends to join them, they are left out in the cold.

Sure you can argue that you "can't go wrong with any of the three", but that's sorta been proven wrong, in that if you pick the Game Cube, you were left in the cold in the department of number of games in the console's library.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I just don't get it. If the good games aren't out yet, you're better off playing games on your old console. Why take the risk now? I can understand buying a new PC the moment what you want is available - all your old performance hungry games will suddenly perform better. But with the new consoles, unless the game you want is already available (eg. I bought a DS for Super Mario) there's no point buying now. And anyway, the N64 didn't "win" and yet it provided me with many hours of pleasure.

One thing I'll mention: when I bought my DS, some people said to me "but the PSP is so much more powerful", and I could have afforded the PSP. But the DS gave me what I wanted. However, I can see how some people would probably have caved in under the pressure from friends pointing out that they didn't have the "most powerful". That's a bit sad. Maybe that's what this is really about, people wanting bragging rights to having the "best" console instead of considering "what is the best console for me?". (Or conversely, "who is this console best suited for?")

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[Joe Snipe]

mod parent up +2 funny!!

(there, that should be worth at least a +1 insightful)

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[pandrijeczko]

As someone who games mainly on the PC, I beg to differ with you about your comments about the number of games in the Gamecube library.

Sure, there are less titles but the general quality of what's available on the Gamecube does invariably *seem* to be of a higher standard than on the other consoles.

I've got about 40 titles on the Gamecube, admitedly I've bought a lot of those secondhand but I'd say that pretty much all of the titles are good quality games - and there's quite a few more still I'd like to have in my collection.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[voxel]

The Gamecube clearly from a number sold financial perspective LOST, dead last. You can't argue the real numbers. Unless you are picking Zelda, or Mario games exclusively, the GameCube was the wrong choice.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[AvitarX]

I just modded you all off topic.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[cowscows]

There's a difference between good games and the best games. Just because the best games on these new systems are probably still yet to come, doesn't mean that the launch games are going to suck. And when you're talking about a console with something as different as the Wii remote, then it's not all that surprising that people are excited and ready to try that new thing.

People are choosing sides because most of us can't afford to buy one of each console at launch, and nobody wants to think they made the wrong choice. Some people get a bit too excited about it and make it a huge deal because they've got too much free time.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[Joe Snipe]

please mod parent up +1 informative

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're looking for a good, fun racing game, try F-Zero. If you're looking specifically for a realistic racing game, I've never really gotten into them, so I can't help you.

Re:It's not a war, the Wii is not a side

[Anonymous Coward]

The XBox clearly from a financial perspective LOST, dead last (better than $5 billion behind second place Nintendo). You can't argue the real numbers.

That out of the way, Microsoft reports units *shipped*, Nintendo reports units *sold*. Probably not enough to make up the 3 million unit difference, but then, the GameCube is actually still available for sale. I haven't seen an XBox available for over 6 months, so it's still possible (however unlikely) that the GameCube will end up being the second-place console of its generation.

That said, the PS2 clearly mopped the floor with both the XBox and GameCube, selling more than double their combined total.

My prediction for this generation? PS3, followed somewhat closely by the Wii, with the 360 trailing the pack for a $1.5-2 billion loss for Microsoft. In fact, if Microsoft nets a profit on the 360, I'll eat my Windows ME OEM license package (minus the CD, those sharp edges are dangerous). (Of course, that assumes I remember this post in 5 years.)

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. I own the following consoles (all in working order): Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, N64, GameBoy Advance SP, PS2, GameCube, PSP, & Wii. I anticipate buying a PS3 sometime around March. I've considered buying an XBox, but there were only 3 or 4 exclusive titles that really interested me, maybe one of these days I'll pick up a used one and try those games, but probably not. I don't anticipate buying a 360 at this point.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that is a troll.

I salute you, sir.

iawtp

[Anonymous Coward]

The controller for the ps3 not having rumble functionality makes me so mad that I now hate the ps2 and women.

I have some hope for man kind.

[LWATCDR]

I so hope that there are not 100,000 fools that will pay 2000 to 3000 for a $600 console they can buy in six months for $600.
I could be wrong but I can dream.

Re:I have some hope for man kind.

[dalerb]

You neglected to take a glance at eBay before you posted this, didn't you?

Re:I have some hope for man kind.

[Oktober Sunset]

There are a hell of a lot of people with more money than sense, and most of them would be in the same situation if they had only a penny.

Re:I have some hope for man kind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately there seems to be just that. Take a look at eBay...for example:

Playstation 3 Premium 60GB system PS3!
Winning bid: US $2,550.00 (Approximately C $2,907.26)
Ended: 17-Nov-06 16:03:30 EST

Devs like Wii because it's better for them.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Nintendo's push for innovation over graphical prowess is exciting for game developers, both because they like innovation and they dislike cutting-edge graphics (which require 8-figure budgets, which leads to more conservative game publishers who don't want to risk such huge investments, which leads to tough times for any developer who doesn't want to spend his or her life updating the facial animations for Madden 20XX).

This doesn't mean ordinary GAMERS should necessarily prefer Wii. A lot of gamers only go for the AAA titles that can afford to have great graphics AND excellent gameplay, plot, etc. For them, it comes down to a much more difficult personal preference between new controller schemes and advanced graphics.

Oh yeah, and a few hundred bucks and a six-day line outside a Gamestop in a gloomy strip mall.

Congrats, Sony...

[paniq]

...you got pwiined!

get it? pwiined!! ha ha ha. oh boy.

Why are so many people hung up on graphics?

[Saint V Flux]

Jesus people, the only reasons anyone ever has for why PS3 or Xbox 360 are better is because they have "better graphics". Yea, there's a reason to drop down a few hundred on a console and $60 a game -- to look at pretty pictures while I beat my head through the wall due to crap gameplay. Yes, there are some good games (Sony has Final Fantasy, Xbox 360 has Gears of War), but so many games for those systems are merely ports of PC games that I can get to look much better on my computer than I can on a console. Nintendo may not have the most cutting edge graphics or the latest marketing ploy (blue-ray anyone?), but they have a higher percentage of quality games. That is why Nintendo is the better system -- because they know what real gamers want. Real gamers want a fun game and don't care if you can count the exact number of pores on someones face in the game.

real problem with the PS3

[Srsen]

The real problem with the PS3 was that Sony underpriced them. Yes, I meant to say underpriced. With the pent-up demand, they should have slapped a "First Edition" sticker on the initial shipment and sold them for $1200. They still would have sold out, but people would be much less upset at not getting one if they could never had afforded them anyway.

Then ship a million of them in December at the regular price. Why is Sony taking a loss on this first shipment when they don't have to? All they're doing is giving away the margin that resellers are making on eBay.

Re:real problem with the PS3

[Thraxen]

Bad, bad, bad idea. Sure, they would still sell to the hardcore gamers, but that would piss off so much of their fan base that it would hurt them more in the long run. People can accept the fact that some hardcore geeks snatched them all up and flipped them on Ebay... they get to be the a-holes, not Sony. At least the average consumer still has hope they might catch a break and grab one at a store for a reasonable price. But if Sony did that themselves then they become the a-holes and that is NOT the image you want as a company. You also might also make a fair number of your software developers a bit uneasy with a stunt like that.

Re:real problem with the PS3

[eklitzke]

The real problem with the PS3 was that Sony underpriced them. Yes, I meant to say underpriced. With the pent-up demand, they should have slapped a "First Edition" sticker on the initial shipment and sold them for $1200. They still would have sold out, but people would be much less upset at not getting one if they could never had afforded them anyway.

This would not have worked out well. The harm to the PS3's reputation would be enormous if Sony jacked up the initial pricing. Even if the increased price was only for the first couple of weeks launch time, people would see this as greed, and a lot of people would be turned off by that. Even worse, most casual gamers would assume that the PS3 was exorbitantly more expensive than the other consoles for a long time to come afterwards, even if this was not the case.

Re:real problem with the PS3

[Srsen]

Well, in my opinion they look like a-holes now because they didn't have enough units ready at the ship date to meet the obvious demand. If you sell out 200,000 units the first day at $1200 a piece, but as part of your marketing announce that that's only the "early" pricing, then everyone else who buys once in a month at $700 thinks they're getting a good deal. That's managing demand. It also doesn't piss off your resellers who are having freakin' riots in the parking lot.

With consumer electronics, the marketing is everything. If you present it correctly, the customers will buy into any pricing scheme you want. Everyone knows the price will drop over time anyway, just as it did with the PS2.

Re:real problem with the PS3

[IvanTheNotSoBad]

Could you imagine the posts on slashdot if they had done this? I know I'm in a personal "I hate Sony" era but this would have been the greediest stunt a company could pull. Like many posts said when the PS3 was announced at $600, people would be fine overpaying some greedy guy on ebay to have it right away. They certainly wouldn't feel right giving that same money directly to Sony.

If they would have done that....I would have destroyed my PS2 a la "Office Space".

Sony can't be bothered to sell me a PS3

[giafly]

...so I'm certainly not going to wait until next Summer when I'm allowed to buy one. Kiss any thought of an HDTV sale goodbye, Sony.

The Wii looks very good, but to be honest I think the DS is the better choice for adults, though it's not "next gen", because you can take it to work.

Re:Wait a year -- or forever

[Purity Of Essence]

I've got three HDTVs in my house and I have absolutely no desire to purchase an X360 or a PS3. YMMV.

Give it time

[_bug_]

Every time we go through a new set of releases the same topics keep coming up. This one is expensive, this one is cheap, this one is innovative, this one has poor launch titles, etc.. And if history has taught us anything it's that the arguments made now won't reflect the reality six months from now.

The PS3 has had a terrible launch and I think it's pretty obvious the project was rushed. There's little there that would attract a casual gamer to the PS3. The people buying right now are scalpers, hard-core gamers, and the moms and dads who buy from the scalpers because junior insists on having the latest and greatest gadget regardless of it's merits.

However, in a six months to a year we'll see some amazing games come out for the platform that make use of Cell's full potential. That is when the PS3 will make it's real run. Stock supplies will be up, the price of the console will be down, and a lot more people will have HD-capable televisions that will benefit from the PS3's Blu-ray drive and HD output. There will probably be a better general understanding of HD as well, with many more HD-DVD/Blu-ray drives on the market, perhaps convincing people that PS3 price tag is worth it after all (when they see the cost of a standalone player).

Of course these "industry insiders" say they're going the way of the Wii at launch, but I'll bet anything they all have a PS3 within a year.

Re:Give it time

[bluefoxlucid]

However, in a six months to a year we'll see some amazing games come out for the platform that make use of Cell's full potential.

Never gonna happen. The Cell is a supercomputer processor, not a normal processor. To take advantage of its full potential you have to write supercomputing applications for it; games simply don't have the balls, they have AI simulation and physics engines. Further, the processor isn't a "super-fast Athlon 64 on steroids and caffeine," it's a different design with different functionality; you actually have to talk to it different if you want to make it work fully, and that's a really low-level and specialized job that takes years of analysis and engineering for the specific task.

Sure you could write a near-perfect physics engine for it; but it'd take a multi-billion dollar budget and special programming to take advantage of Cell's parallel capabilities. It's one main core controlling 8 slightly-different slave cores on a cyclical bus; this is different from a simple 9 core processor, and you have to actually instrument tiny pieces of code to start and stop in various ways and interact with the different cores in specialized methods. Anything else is just shoehorning legacy programming techniques into a different model.

Re:Give it time

[rjung2k]

"However, in a six months to a year we'll see some amazing games come out for the platform that make use of Cell's full potential."

Like what, pray tell? Honestly, I'm having a damn hard time thinking of what magic mojo in the PS3 is going to result in games that are significantly better or more innovative than the stuff we have now.

"Wow, this Cell-driven blood-splatter is so realistic!"
"Look at those awesome high-res textures!"
"Hey, the PS3 has twice as many attacking zombies as the PS2!"

Despite the current-gen graphics of the Wii (and what's wrong with current-gen, anyway?), the controllers will force innovation and creativity by forcing developers to think of new ways to use its motion-sensing and pointing capabilities. When even a threadworn franchise like Madden gets revitalized with the Wii's motion-based gameplay, that says a lot about the potential for developers trying out new ideas.

quoted EA folks hardly influential

[Anonymous Coward]

One of them is a localization guy, the other is an art director. They have as much influence in the company as the average Anonymous Coward has.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Speaking as a reader of thechaosengine, bollocks"

Bwahahaha!!!

I admit my post was hasty and a bit rambling at this early in the morning...but I had to jump back in and laugh at that gem.

thechaosengine, can't type that without laughing.

Silly person, there are places where real life console developers hang out. It sure as hell isn't a place where all the little fatbabies trash migrated to...

Im not impressed by anything that's out yet.

[Gno]

Well I have to say, the Xbox 360 really doesn't impresses me at all. The PS3 seems like a pile of new-tech parts and shiney widgets rather than something i'd buy. especially for $600 that's insane. The wii however, offers something diffrent than the other consoles. I think that's what people are looking for right now a diffrent gaming exprience.

Re:Im not impressed by anything that's out yet.

[Phoenix00017]

I couldn't agree more. However, the key word is "yet". Look at the first generation of games on any new system and they aren't even in the same ballpark as the last few games on a system. The last Spyro game on PS1 competed well graphically with many of the PS2 launch titles, and Final Fantasy XII is stacking up well against 360 and PS3 titles. Gears of War, now that developers are starting to learn the 360 development tricks, blows away the both the PS3 and 360 launch titles.

However, IBM has made no bones about the fact that the Cell is difficult to develop for (from the article on the Cell processor):

The architecture emphasizes efficiency/watt, prioritizes bandwidth over latency, and favors peak computational throughput over simplicity of program code. For these reasons, Cell is widely regarded as a challenging environment for software development. IBM provides a comprehensive Linux-based Cell development platform to assist developers in confronting these challenges. Software adoption remains a key issue in whether Cell ultimately delivers on its performance potential.

Recall though that developers had the same complaints about the PS2 and its "emotion engine". It will take time to truly take advantage of the cell processor. I will be buying my Wii and waiting a year or two to see what churns out for the PS3. The potential is there, yes, but whether or not anyone exploits it remains to be seen.

Re:Im not impressed by anything that's out yet.

[Raenex]

I will be buying my Wii and waiting a year or two to see what churns out for the PS3. The potential is there, yes, but whether or not anyone exploits it remains to be seen.

Good advice.

Re:Wait a year

[Phisbut]

Their Wii will be collecting dust as they play new games in HD.

Right. The same way their NDS is probably collecting dust as they play new games on their PSP...

A Question

[Hennell]

Reading through the reasons given I noticed one person saying "I'm a pretty loyal Sony consumer, but as I did with the 360, I'll probably wait a while for them to work out the kinks." This was right after saying they'd pre-ordered a Wii.
This type of thing is something a number of people are saying; ' you should wait to get a 2nd gen PS3, because like the 360 it'll have problems'. Yet I've not heard anyone say anything like that about the Wii.

Is there a reason for this or just because of the PS3's has had manufacturing issues/delays. Assuming the PS3 might have problems might make some sense but why not assume the Wii might too? Is it because the Wii doesn't have all the HD chips and new processors bound to go wrong or because Nintendo have a better track record or something? Or is it simply that people care less about a $250 device breaking then a $600 one?

(NB - if I get anything it'll be a Wii.)

Re:A Question

[hibiki_r]

It's pretty easy: Early Playstations, PS2s and PSPs had issues. Early 360s had issues. Nintendo's manufacturing record is pretty much spotless, barring some cracked hinges in some DS lites.

Nintendo just doesn't release hardware that isn't ready for release.

Re:A Question

[Chris Burke]

This type of thing is something a number of people are saying; ' you should wait to get a 2nd gen PS3, because like the 360 it'll have problems'. Yet I've not heard anyone say anything like that about the Wii.

Because there's little history of problems with Nintendo consoles.

Frankly, there's little history of serious problems period. Prior to the last generation, game consoles were still expected to be like every other home electronic appliance: You bought it, you brought it home, and it worked. Games, too. They were expected to just work. The stability of the hardware/software in consoles was always a major argument in their favor over PCs.

So the fact that so many people had to replace their PS2s within a year, and Xbox 360 owners were experiencing problems, is a new thing. Now I partly blame it on companies like MS who are used to a "release-then-patch" philosophy. Certainly when the consoles got online capabilities that was the first thing I expected to happen, and it was. Sony, I don't know what their deal is, they've been troubled lately. Nintendo, they still seem to very much want to give people the old-school console experience of it "just working". I think they would be embarassed to have to release patches to fix major launch problems.

But we'll see what actually happens.

Re:A Question

[Detritus]

My experience is that Nintendo gets it right the first time, unlike Microsoft or Sony, where you are better off waiting for the first revision of the hardware, where they fix the problems discovered in the initial release.

Re:A Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Nintendo has a strong reputation of having high quality standards for all their products. My first generation NES still works (although it still requires some finesse to get some games to start).

Re:A Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Because those of us that have bought first gen Nintendo hardware have never had problems with them. I've never had a fault on any of my Nintendo equipement, aside from the occasional game not booting until I blew the dust out of the edge connector.

The only crash I've ever had was due to using the Datel memory upgrade for my N64. Took that back to the shop, paid the extra cash to buy the Nintendo one and the crashing stopped.

Re:A Question

[techpawn]

From what I've read the Wii uses a lot of the same base hardware as an GC. So it's been tested and working of a while... The controler I'm just putting faith in...

Re:A Question

[mink]

Exactly.
I'm on my third PS2. I keep them in a low dust smoke free environment and treat them well. They still quit reading stuff after some random amount of time. I had to resort to using the one that could read PS1 games still to install a softmod and put dump my games onto a HDD, and use HD loader to play my games now that none of them can read the DVD media. Even after 12 re-designs (and from looking in the guts of my 3 I see they changed DVD drive design every time it seams) I still see people talking about how they bought a slim PS2 and the DVD drive conked out on them.

This really sucks because I cant throw in Monster Rancher, or any games that allow you to put in a music CD (rare I know).

Maybe if the PS3 price comes down and I see that quality isn't shit I can finally play games again without all this jumping through hoops.

Strangely enough, I'm still on my 1st Dreamcast, Turbo-Duo, Sega-CD, and Sega Saturn. Now most of those are CD drives, but the DC had a high density media drive and they managed to make one that didn't eat itself.

I once had a Walkman that was almost completely in pieces (took a lot of abuse when I had a dish washing job at a restaurant) but played tapes and radio flawlessly even in the state it was in. I miss those days.

Re:Yes, but, or why America is more

[WillAffleckUW]

Hmm. Let's look at your arguments. For the record, I live in the Fremont neighborhood (Center of the Universe) here in Seattle.

-I love Belgium beers. The U.S. buys Budweiser.

I have a Belgian alehouse one block from my house. Every bar (about 20) within a mile of my house sells Belgian beer.

-I loved Firefly. The world loves Desperate Houswives.-I have art over my mantlepiece. The suberbanites put a large mirror there.

I have art I was given at Boreal 87 in Chicoutimi, PQ (Canada) when I was a guest for their SF con - over my mantelpiece.

-I love that little place down the street. The U.S. loves Applebees.

I like the American-style diner across the street from where I work and the Organic Bakery (they serve lunch too) a few blocks away. You can have both.

What I'm saying is that the Wii is more American than the PS3. More people - especially those of us bored with all the FPS and Sports games - want to play it. I don't care if I can't see beads of sweat on the football I'm tossing - I want to toss it with my controller not press 43 buttons to do it - the Wii lets me throw it with my arm, jab with my foil, slash with my sabre, and shoot with my gun, reloading my auto shotgun by the usual pump jerk and shoot that I'm used to from my Army days.

It gets me off my couch.

Now THAT is worth paying for

Difficult to make new games

[wile_e_wonka]

Judging from what I saw on the news the other day, it seems that making new games for the PS3 will be very difficult if the designers intend to make use of all that the console can do anyway. (what I heard on the news was that on the PS3's new basketball game the designers spent a lot of time getting the players' sweat just right, using a combination of algorithms that take into account the amount of work a player is doing as well as the shape and contours of the player's face)

If detail like that is going into every bit of the game, then, as a developer, I think I'd much prefer to be on the Nintendo Wii team, rather than the PS3 team, if I ever want to see my game make it to market (I'm not a developer, but I mean, if I were...).

Game Industry Folks Siding with the Wii

[SeaFox]

[cue mental image of game industry folks hand in had singing "Wii are the World"]

offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

what is experimental threading??

yes, i googled it already.

Good!

[scolen2]

Good, One more PS3 for me! "Go play with your Wii!"

Why I can't buy a PS3

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting a Wii because it has THE BEST games and it's a better gaming platform all around. It will have some of the best titles ever such as Zelda, Bomberman, Monkey Ball, Melee, etc. However, I love simulation/realism and the PS3 will offer more in that respect. For example, I'd love to play Call of Duty in High Def. So I'm forced to choose one console since I'm not rich. But considering I already have a PC I'll probably just play sim games (like call of duty, flight sims, etc.) on Windows and get a new graphics card here soon. So I guess I'm purchasing the Wii by default. However, the real tragedy here is that neither game console aims to replace the PC, which is a HUGE mistake IMO since both machines are computers that COULD run consumer apps, web browser, whatever. Were the PS3 to run a consumer OS I'd purchase it without thought and my entertainment and computing needs would be met with one purchase.

Re:Wait a year

[nra1871]

I know exactly one person who has an HDTV. It's just not that important to most people. When they replace their TV's when they eventually break, and HDTV is the norm, then we'll start to care.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[SirSlud]

Our corperate internal 'buy' pool for consoles:

16 people want PS3s.
47 people want Wiis.

300 person console development company.

Availability

[Detritus]

How long will it take Sony to catch up with demand for the PS3? They seem to be having more problems than Microsoft and I've only recently seen xbox 360s available on the shelves of local stores.

look in the arcades

[smithcl8]

If you want to see where the gaming industry is going, take a look in the arcades. All of the games I can think of are somehow immersive with simple controls: you dance on light pads, you drive a car with a steering wheel, you shoot zombies with a shotgun, you paddle a raft down a gulley, etc. You won't find joystick controlled games in your local Dave and Buster's anymore.

This is what the Wii developers took into account when they started this project. They created a simple controller that can be used in a variety of ways as many different things. It can be pointed like a gun, turned like a steering wheel, swung like a sword, cast like a fishing rod, swung like a golf club....heck, I can't even think of all the uses.

Now, with this device as the interface, they added wireless connectivity, a neat secondary controller for the other hand, and backward compatibility for GameCube games. What more can you ask for a single system? And for $250? They've done an amazing job, which is exactly why I can't wait to buy mine.

Re:look in the arcades

[Chris Burke]

If you want to see where the gaming industry is going, take a look in the arcades. All of the games I can think of are somehow immersive with simple controls: you dance on light pads, you drive a car with a steering wheel, you shoot zombies with a shotgun, you paddle a raft down a gulley, etc. You won't find joystick controlled games in your local Dave and Buster's anymore.

I think that's more a case of the consoles pushing the arcades out. There's no reason to go to the arcade to play something that uses a simple joystick and buttons because you can duplicate the experience on your game console, only with couch, fridge, and friends. So the arcades only option is to provide an experience you can't get at home. This is also why pinball machines, skeeball, and basketball games sit side-by-side with House of the Dead and what have you.

This is probably where arcades will continue to go. The wii enables more immersive control options, sure, but you still aren't going to get the same sensation as you would, say, sitting on a hydraulic seat shaped like a motorcycle.

Arcades used to be the forefront of video game design, now they're a side show. It's okay, as far as i'm concerned.

Rush job led to line violence

[OSS_ilation]

Sony rushed everything and anything about this console, and now people are literally getting shot for one. With the 360 already entrenched, and the Wii taking the rest of the gamer population (and many more outside it), there is no reason at present to develop for, or purchase this console. Maybe in time that will change, but you only have so long before the fickle mob moves on.

Re:Your post sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post and points are both awful.

First

"It really doesn't matter what you think of the Wii. The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii."

This is what you call artificial hype, which is the product of (400,000) units in the US. Why do they do this? So that the media can promote for them by showing it on the news and doing lame pieces in the papers. So all the tools will camp out over night making it feel like this is a rare item. Giving a few people opportunity at something will make the flock feel unloved. OOHHHH but Sony loves you all. Sony has millions either here in storage waiting or on their way here, for that lovely time where we praise Jesus by giving all our money to buy items of poor quality i.e.(ps3). you get the picture.

The reason you won't see lines for Wii or retarded prices on eBay is because Nintendo shipped 4 MILLION units, yes that's right, Nintendo love to accommodate the masses. Why would they do this and not the shifty tactics of Sony. Nintendo knows their product is better so they don't have too. End of story

"(I would caution those who champion the Wii to take a closer look at what they're doing. They're saying it's great before they've even seen a unit in person. Some guy in another thread insinuated that PS3 purchasers were acting like sheep. Proclaining the Wii as "superior" without haveing every played it is absolutely no better)"

You have got to be kidding me with this statement it may be the dumbest thing I've read all week. If you haven't read the thousands of reviews and sites "Proclaining the Wii as "superior"" then you've missed a lot in the past 9 months.

keith
ps spell check is your friend

Wii

[BlackIcejane]

Can't wait till Sunday

Christmas Math

[mythras]

In my opinion, Sony is repeating history here. Anyone remember a $700 system that came out about 10 years ago called 3DO? No? That's because they tried to sell a base unit for $700 as well. Yeah, it looked good, but still flopped. And I don't care how many tax cuts you're getting from W, $700 is still a lot of money. I'll take my Wii and 6 or so new games for that much cash.

There are only so many PS3's in the world

[punkosu]

As I understand PS3's are a little harder to come by than the Wii. Personally I like Nintendo, I hate the Xbox controller and there is no way I am paying over 400 bucks for a console for the ability to spend 50+ dollars per game. Wii seems like a great console designed for many different types of people, not just the elite gamers of the group looking for the hottest new graphics.

College Student

[c00rdb]

From the perspective of an atypical slashdot-college student (very very casual gamer). The only system I ever really hear talked about on campus was Playstation 2 and now Playstation 3. I know you all hate Sony and are convinced that Wii will be a better system (and I have no idea, it'll probably be a long while before I ever play it). You'd be amazed at how many people use PS2 only in order to play Madden. These kids don't want innovative new controls, they like to challenge each other where they don't have a learning curve. They want to have the cool system, and that's been Playstation. Nintendo has a stigma I'd say as being nerdy and childish. No one even cares really about xBox or Wii around here, they just accept that "playing videogames" probably means sports games Playstation. You guys may focus on the casual gamers, but the real focus should be on the ultra-casual gamer, the Madden/Jock crowd of college students and young graduates. Most of these people just buy the next PS and don't even question it. Little kids will ask for PS3 because their older pbrothers say they should. In short, you guys vastly underestimate Sony's branding I think. That's really the most important aspect of a consoles success. People griped about PS2 being difficult to devolop for in the begining, and look how it did- it just rode PS1's coatails. Look at Corona, the beer sucks...but people buy it because of the branding and how it is marketed as exotic. It's gained a reputation for being good and now people treat it like it is good.

Re:College Student

[theurge14]

The only reason the PS2 is/was popular in college towns is because it was cheap and it doubled as a DVD player. In college it's all about money and the lack of it. The PS2 will continue to hang on in many dorm rooms because it's still a good DVD player but expect the cheap Wii to creep in as the cheap gaming upgrade.

The only people on campus you'll see with those $600 consoles like the PS3 are the kids who have parents who also bought their car/rent/textbooks/food/beer/tuition and don't have to ever worry about working and going to school at the same time.

Re:College Student

[dukieduke]

You raise some interesting points, but there are a few holes in your cheese:

First cheese hole: As a "very very casual gamer" the market segment (college students that play Madden) you are describing is narrow, already won (according to you) and would be money down the toilet to focus on (unless you feel the Wii presents some threat to this segment). Market growth does not happen by keeping the status-quo.

Second cheese hole: People do want innovative controls. They don't mind a new control system, considering it may even be the first control system they have even learned (more on this in your third hole). A learning curve should be part of every game released. The DS is a great example of this type of situation. It succeeded beyond all college students' predictions that the PSP was the safe bet because that goofy new Nintendo had two screens, touch, and inferior graphics that couldn't play a movie. College students and their siblings bought the PSP in crazy numbers based on this focused segment's recommendations in some alternative universe. Branding really should mean something here. Oh wait, maybe they weren't released on school breaks when big bro' can tell the younger ones what they should like. All adolescents want to be their big brother, surely.

Third hole: "Nintendo has a stigma I'd say as being nerdy and childish." Well you would say that representing the ultra-casual gamer, but why are the DS games that are directed towards an aging population (Brain Age. Brain Academy) ripping up the charts? Could it be that they don't care if gramma has to learn an interface considering she has no old one to get upset about losing? And she liked it, and is buying more non-traditional titles (cooking simulator?!?). Japanese charts bear this out.

I could have many more holes, even pointing out that your post suggested that it was males that will drive the industry by concentrating on the sport-dorm and frat-boys (and graduates from) that influence a buying public. (Older brothers) Good luck with that attitude in the future. Meanwhile, Ninteno seems to be eating Sony's lunch.

I hope you aren't a business student.

Re:College Student

[wframe9109]

As an atypical slashdot-college student who is a very very casual gamer, would you or your friends be willing to spend 600$ + the cost of games (+ 2000$++ for a good HDTV and 70$ for the cable??)??????

As another college student, who has been even less into games as you (console games that is), I can tell you the PS3 is not getting the most discussion here. Many girls in my fiances sorority are interested in the Wii (they're getting one for the lounge as well). My fiance is making me get one, although I was planning on it anyways. At work, two managers and three coworkers out of perhaps 10 workers I converse with normally will be lining up Saturday night, some for their children and selves, some for their wives. I've read countless responses on internet forums coming from men who's significant others are quite interested in gaming. When a Grandma goes to pick up a hot new present this Christmas, what game system will she get? The one not on the shelf, at 600$ (Grandma spending that much? HA), or the 250$ system (still a lot for a grandma, perhaps parents would be a better example) with family friendly games and a remote that looks like it gives you exercise.

I don't think there is really any way the Nintendo won't be incredibly successful this year. My guess is it will turn out to be an enormous hit, similar to the DS. I'd also venture to say that there will be plenty of stubborn people or people who simply aren't interested in Nintendo games who will make Sony and Microsoft successful as well. But think about it... With so many picking the Nintendo as a second system (two system houses are very common, but why would ANYONE get a PS3/360 at the cost and small differential in games...), so many non-gamers interested in the Nintendo, so many kids who will have their parents buy the Nintendo, and so many people who are tired of the same old flaming SHIT with a new paper bag around it... I think Nintendo is going to be on a whole different level.

I'll still have my PC if I crave "ultra-realistic games".

Re:College Student

[rjung2k]

Funny, I thought college frat boys would flock to Wii Sports, if only for the oppportunity to stay up all night boxing each other into (virtual) submission... ;-)

Re:College Student

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that flamebait, I agree with you!

Re:College Student

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, anything posted against wii or for Sony get modded as flamebait. Its the same with Microsoft/Apple. While I would take Apple's side, it's funny how much of a pattern the comments on articles like these follow.

Council?

[CritterNYC]

"I go to a council for a distinctly different experience then a PC"

Would that be the Council of Console Gamers? I hear they have a pretty good counseling center that can help console you if your pre-order was cancelled.

So you want the PS3 to run

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Dos 6.22?

Windows?

Linux?

or PS3 OS 2 ?

No, it can't be

[kaoshin]

I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with the wii promo video

It's the "other" November election...

[7Prime]

People who think that the Wii and the PS3 are aimed at wildly different markets should get their heads checked. The whole "we're not competative" thing was started by Nintendo to make themselves look like the "nice guys", but they're competing head to head with the PS3 in the same demographics. Both are aiming at hardcore gamers (no matter what anyone says about the Wiimotes being "kiddy", most of their fans are long time, dyed-in-the-wool classic gamers), with the Wii simply being more successful at being able to reach more casual gamers. But let's not fool ourselves, people who have never played games before are just as unlikely to buy a Wii as a PS3. They're like sports teams, everyone has their favorite, and are gunning for it to whoop the other... regardless of their age, gender, sexual orientation, or otherwise. The PS3 is going to be more attractive to younger gamers due to Sony's meathead, testosterone-laced design philosophy, where-as the Wii is going to be more favorable to the 23+ crowd who grew up with classic games. But these differences are subtle, and mostly they're gunning toward the exact same people.

It's the "other" November election: Sony vs. Nintendo, Republican vs. Democrat. Who's philosophy will dominate the game industry? Who's philosophy will dominate the government? I've taken sides, have you?

Re:Yes, but, or why America is more

[Total_Wimp]

I'm not arguing that you don't have those things and I do. I'm arguing that the sales of those other things far surpass the sales of the things you and I might prefer, even though virtually every person "in the know" would proclaim our choices superior. Similarly, it doesn't necessarily matter if the Wii is superior or not. The winner will be the one people actually buy.

TW

wii for mii

[Anonymous Coward]

i LOVE the wii i played it in EB games and well it makes me Wii!!!

That's all they do anyway

[Tarlus]

"All they do is port the gamecube version, polish it up, and add in the new controls."

That's how Madden games have been made for years... Take what they have, make a few adjustments, slap the current year on it and then set it loose. ;)

Re:Your post sucks

[Total_Wimp]

Your post and points are both awful... ...ps spell check is your friend

Yoo r meen! I donet liik yor poynts ether.

Coke vs Pepsi

[mgabrys_sf]

It's about the brand stupid.

When 100 plus million people buy into a logo - you get headlines like this:

"Study: PlayStation Brand Strong as Ever"

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=4220&Itemid=2

60 percent retention rate kind of puts a crimp on niddling things like "crossover-forecasting".

Guerrilla cross-marketing?

[markhb]

I cannot for the life of me remember where I saw this, or what it was for, but I saw a commercial for some gadget (or something) recently, and the tagline at the end of the ad, on screen below the product image, in what looked like the Helvetica-style type Nintendo is using, read "dare to be wiild", or "born to be wiild," or something like that. Has anyone else seen that? It made me think that Nintendo might be doing some subtle cross-promoting.

In the mall today, launch day

[oldbenway]

Today on launch day, the new PS3 demo station sat unused while the Wii was being crowded around. A few folks picked up the controller and most of us made a comment that the graphics looked nice, but all in all, it's just a shiny, higher res version of something we have all seen before.

The Wii, on the other hand, looked pretty crummy graphics-wise, sitting next to the PS3; but playing Excite Truck with no cables attached and using tilt to steer was one of the most refreshing things I have seen in a long time (as far as games are concerned). I came out of EBGames wanting a Wii and not even looking at the PS3 game wall.

My point is that the in-store Wii really stole the PS3's glory, on launch day even!

All bugs worked out with 'Cube

[Telepathetic Man]

The only probable bugs with the Wii, will be with the new controller. Mainly because the console architecture has had all of the last generation to work out whatever bugs may have been there, which were remarkably few for the 'Cube, in comparison to the competition. I've owned all three of the last generation consoles, the only the works as good as the day I bought it (Used!), is the Gamecube. Peronally I thought the 'Cube was the winner as of the last go 'round because of this, although I am a big GTA fan.

Re:All bugs worked out with 'Cube

[trdrstv]

Personally I love the lack of load times in the Cube. For 1st/2nd party games they are practically non-existant. Why the 360 or the PS3 can't cut load times is beyond me, as a customer it's important.

Re:All bugs worked out with 'Cube

[koreth]

Is it really important? I hate waiting for loading too (Dungeon Siege 1 and 2 were a delight to play in part because of their on-the-fly background loading) but I can't say I've ever refused to buy a game I wanted because it took too long to load.

If you (and I) grumble about a problem but buy anyway, then from the company's perspective it actually isn't that important a problem after all, no matter what we say. It's only a problem the industry has any reason to pay attention to if it affects sales.

Re:All bugs worked out with 'Cube

[trdrstv]

I understand, we (as consumers) will only get what we put up with, so if I buy a game (I have all consoles)I at least buy the version of the game that has the least loading. This causes my collection to be skewed to Gamecube, then Xbox, and I have very few PS2 titles...

Texture work is the same

[SuperKendall]

Game companies all start with texture work that is massively overdetailed today - they don't care what the end resolution may be. That's more a worry of the engine designers - but then that's why you have things like the UT engine.

Really this whole thread is stupid anyway as the future will really be smaller games sold online that will be far cheaper to produce.

Re:Texture work is the same

[cgenman]

Are you in the industry?

Artists start with texture maps that that are higher resolution but not higher detail. You're creating a map with a certain expected degree of display resolution, and if you go much higher than that with your maps they have a tendency to mush and blend together. You wouldn't create details for the PS2 like internal textures in buttons, but that's exactly the sort of thing you'd notice in HD on a 360

Add in normal mapping, reflection mapping, diffuse, specular, etc, and you have an expensive art pipeline.

Estimates being thrown around GDC '06 were that next-gen content costs roughly twice as much to build... not a bad estimate at all in what I've seen. Unfortunately the number of next-gen consoles is currently low, and it's not like there will be twice the players buying games once the penetration is higher so... do the math.

Microsoft's Gamble Pays Off

[BumBiscuit]

One thing I found sort of interesting in the TFA: Quite a few of the responders indicated that they weren't going to pick up a PS3 because it doesn't really bring anything to the table that their Xbox 360 doesn't already do.

So it looks like MS's gambit of bringing their next gen console out a year early -- considered risky by many because most people would presumably wait and see what Sony had up their sleeve -- might have paid off after all.

Re:Microsoft's Gamble Pays Off

[xantho]

But only because Sony didn't have anything up their sleeve. And it may be nothing but serendipity that Sony maneuvered themselves into this position. If there was no HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray format war going on, maybe Sony goes with the one HD solution and it costs the same amount as the 360, at which point people dive on the PS3 because of marginal cost of hardware benefits that 1 extra year of tech development buys you, and because the PS2 had so much more 3rd party support initially than the Xbox. Or maybe they eschew HD media altogether and their product comes in cheaper, and people dive on it because it's cheaper than the 360.

Anyway, that's an interesting way to think of things. Maybe Sony's dependence on the PS2's market share making the PS3 on its own, and using that to prop up it's horse in the HD optical media race will be their downfall. But who am I kidding, that won't be the case. I think when there's ample supply after they finally get their hardware production issues sorted out, people will buy the hell out of it. And if 3rd party developers are willing to learn to get the hang out of the cell processor and GPU for more than just higher rez textures and higher poly models, and get around to making a badass physics engine with IK out the ass and such, then the PS3 will do spectacularly. As it is, I can't see that happening for quite a while. And I think that once the PS3 gets into its renaissance phase, the prices will have come down enough to justify that.

As it stands now, there are innovative games and experiences right now (well, on Sunday) on the Wii. I mean, just look at how stupid the graphics look in the baseball game in Wii sports. But god damnit, I'm going to play that thing for about 5 hours a day for the next 6 months. And I'm going to love it! (I think.) I've convinced myself that I'm going to get a great experience for not very much money out of my Wii. And, if it delivers, that will bring me much more pleasure and happiness than any failed launch or any sad looking fanboy that has to come to terms with an expensive system that shot for the moon but came up short.

Re:Yes, but, or why America is more

[WillAffleckUW]

I'm not arguing that you don't have those things and I do. I'm arguing that the sales of those other things far surpass the sales of the things you and I might prefer, even though virtually every person "in the know" would proclaim our choices superior. Similarly, it doesn't necessarily matter if the Wii is superior or not. The winner will be the one people actually buy.

Which is why the Wii is winning. In reality, Sony can't ship more than 80,000 units (some flown in, so really loss leaders) to the US, while Nintendo has shipped more than 400,000 by release date.

'zonked' tag time

[SuperKendall]

Was this story predictable or what? Poor Zonk could not bear some positive press about the PS3 having tremendous demand at launch.

Re:'zonked' tag time

[HappySqurriel]

Was this story predictable or what? Poor Zonk could not bear some positive press about the PS3 having tremendous demand at launch.

Tremendous Demand?

Tremendous Demand would be selling more than 1 Million units in a day because so many people want to play your system they rush out and buy it; when you ship 400,000 (or less) units and the vast majority of people are buying it because they assume there will be a long term (supply based) shortage and they can make a decent profit selling it on eBay. If the rumors are right (which I'm not saying they are) Sony shipped about half of the 400,000 units they planned on shipping so this can not be associated with demand.

All we saw today was a company that had months to prepare for a launch and didn't come even close to producing a decent number of systems for it.

Re:'zonked' tag time

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Poor Zonk could not bear some positive press about the PS3 having tremendous demand at launch."

Heh. I'm sorry, I just find it amusing that you're STILL insisting that this is strictly Zonk bias here. Maybe he does, but it's hard to tell since Sony's PR has tumbled like Homer Simpson crashing down Springfield Gorge. There just plain hasn't been any real good news from Sony's camp. The price sucks. Supply sucks. The launch games suck. The controllers suck. Etc. None of this is of Zonk's invention. What's he supposed to do? Post a headline story about how the battery indicator on the PS3 controller works perfectly?

Speaking of battery indicators, you might find this interesting: Jostiq's own Vladimir Cole says the PS3 controller is flimsy. Sorry I couldn't get Zonk to rewrite the headline to say "The PS3 controller is structurally weak". ;)

Have a good weekend.

Wii I got my Wii

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, I suspect that it will hard to buy either

I went to a little shop a little while back and reserved mine. I put down a deposit. And today I got my Wii...

It's Xmas..

Wii control and real play experience

[Chris Burke]

I also got to play around with a Wii last week (nintendo world store), and the controller DOES seem to work from a functional standpoint.

As actual reviews of the final hardware and software are starting to come in, I'm quite releaved to find out that this is the general consensus. In fact, with the exception of some of the mini-game grappling-with-Nazis from Call of Duty, all the reviewers have been saying "I like many of you was skeptical about how the controls would turn out in practice, but rest assured it works great".

However, granting that I'm still in "imagine what it will be like" mode, I still have a concern, which is the camera.

In your basic Dual Shock setup, you have one analog stick for motion, one for your camera, and then a bunch of buttons to perform actions.

With the wiimote+nunchuck, you have an analog stick for motion, and a combination of buttons and three-dimensional motion of the wiimote to perform actions. Where does this leave the camera? A couple mention tilting the nunchuck as your camera control, and that sounds precarious to me. Cameras and camera control has always been the achiles heel of 3rd-person 3D gaming, and I have to admit I'm concerned how well it works.

Re:Wii control and real play experience

[Thansal]

hmm....

Standard PS2 Controller:
2 analog sticks that can act as buttons
4 standard buttons
4 shoulder buttons
4 directional buttons that are rarely ussed
Total? Hard to say.
you have quick and easy access to 8 bottons and an analog stick (with a button), pluss a second analog stick and 4 more buttons that can be ussed for things you don't need rapid access to.
OR
You have 4 buttons and 2 analog sticks (with buttons) pluss 8 more buttons you have access to. (I never saw any FPS/3PS games that ussed this set up, though it would have worked rather nicely)
OR
22 buttons (this is counting each axis of motion on a analog stick as 2 buttons for +/-)

WiiMote + Nunchuk
2 3 axis motion sensor 2(1 more then an analoge stick)
1 Pointing device (wiimote)
1 Tilt sensor (WiiMote)
2 standard buttons on the wimote
1 Shoulder button on the wiimote
2 shoulder buttons on the nunchuk
4 Not so readily accesable buttons on the WiiMote (1/2 and +/-)
1 Analog Stick on the Nunchuk (it does not have the functionality of a button unfortunatly)
You have:
5 buttons, an analog stick, the equivilent of 2 more (and then some) analoge sticks, a pointing device, and 4 more non readily accessable buttons.
OR
25 buttons (Again 2 for each axis of motion)m a tilt sensor, and a pointing device.

so, I think it will work. (note I just sorta did this all in my head, correct me if I am wrong)

the easiest way of handeling a 3ps would be:
1) Point to aim
2) analog to move
3) nunchuk attachment for cammera
4) 5 buttons for standard actions
5) special actions can be controlled via WiiMote motion
OR
1) Design a farken good follow cammera
2) Point to aim/turn
3) Analog to move
4) Everything else for actions.

For FPS:
1) Camera/aim via point
2) Motion viat Analog
3) 5 buttons/wimote motion/nunchuck motion for pecial actions

Just my thoughts.

It all comes down to the Devs coming up with good ideas an implementing them properly

Wii Shall See.

Re:Wii control and real play experience

[Chris Burke]

the easiest way of handeling a 3ps would be:

3) nunchuk attachment for cammera

OR

1) Design a farken good follow cammera


It basically seems to come down to this. Using the nunchuck would work if it finds the right balance between not wobbling from random hand motions when you aren't intending to move the camera, to being responsive and precise when you do want to move it. The 'farkin good follow camera' has never been done before, so I'm not holding my breath. On the other hand, if I glean the info correctly from the reviews then Twilight Princess actually uses that scheme, and I didn't hear any complaints about the camera.

Re:Wii control and real play experience

[Thansal]

I thought that the nunchuck was ussed to shiled bash in Z:TP

Could you post up links (groan) to the articles you were talking about?

The best bet would be to have a button that alowes you to go into camera move mode (jsut hold it down and you can now change the camera via the nunchuk). Admitedly, that would take one of the 5 real buttons. But then again, howmany do you need?

1) Swing Sword
2) Interact with what you are pointing at (then again, from what I heard, they cahnged it so you jusyt held down a butto nand swang the WiiMote around to attack, so you could have quick presses be ussed for interact, and a holddown for swing)
3) Move cammera
4&5) Items you have keyed up

Dono, I would like to hear about the controll set up. Well, actualy I would like to have a copy, but that probably will nto be happenign to soon (Didn't get a preorder, and I work weekends, so no camping out, or even getting any where at oppening). My only hope is to get one online or one that a friend of a friend might be picking up....
sigh.

Re:Wii control and real play experience

[Chris Burke]

I thought that the nunchuck was ussed to shiled bash in Z:TP

I meant that I think it uses the 'farkin good chase cam' method.

It was one of the reviews here: http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/928519.asp
Though last I looked there were only 4 reviews. There was one that made a single comment about how you couldn't change the camera but it didn't matter, and none of the others I read mentioned the camera at all. I think forgetting to mention the camera is the best praise for a camera that you could have.

Dono, I would like to hear about the controll set up. Well, actualy I would like to have a copy, but that probably will nto be happenign to soon

Frankly, I'm betting that the Wii's greater launch supply will let me get one at my leisure. If not, oh well. ;_;

Re:Wii control and real play experience

[Thansal]

I think forgetting to mention the camera is the best praise for a camera that you could have.

that hits the nail squarely on the head. Almost always the camera is what is talked about when it comes to problems with the game. If not a single person has mentioned it as a problem that is frankely amazing!

and thanks for the reviews, off to be a good drooling fanboy now.

Not number but price

[SuperKendall]

Tremendous demand is better reflected in eBay prices than in it being sold out (which means nothing because they are so few in number).

Also I would say the extent of lines are an indicator as well - when you have 1000+ people lined up at a Sony store, that indicates a greater demand among the general populace as you take those numbers as a percentage of interest.

Basically you are focusing on the one number that means nothing in seeing true demand - you have to "See Beyond" as it were.

Re:Not number but price

[HappySqurriel]

Also I would say the extent of lines are an indicator as well - when you have 1000+ people lined up at a Sony store, that indicates a greater demand among the general populace as you take those numbers as a percentage of interest. Just as a hypothetical situation, do you think those 1000 people would have still been interested in the PS3 had Sony had released a much larger supply (say 2 Million units as an number)? Personally, I think 1/4 of those people would have still shown up because they wanted a PS3 and were willing to pay $600 for one; the rest of the people were there because they could spend $600 today and sell the PS3 for $2,500 tomorow (or at least that is what they think). Tremendous demand is better reflected in eBay prices than in it being sold out (which means nothing because they are so few in number). I do think that there are tons of people want a PS3, and some people are willing to pay anything to get one, but I also think that there is a lot of dishonesty on eBay right now.

Re:Not number but price

[SuperKendall]

Just as a hypothetical situation, do you think those 1000 people would have still been interested in the PS3 had Sony had released a much larger supply (say 2 Million units as an number)?

Yes, I would in fact say ESPECIALLY if there were many more units to be had.

Consider the guys around position 999 and 1000 in line. They know there is about zero chance of getting a PS3 yet they are there anyway. They would have been there regardless of available units.

Basically you can take these numbers of rather fanatical user and derive a percentage from that of people in the general population who would like a console but are not going to be in a line without a pretty sure chance of getting a console.

I do think that there are tons of people want a PS3, and some people are willing to pay anything to get one, but I also think that there is a lot of dishonesty on eBay right now.

eBay is trying to help a bit - they instituted a rule that you could not sell pre-orders unless you had a pretty well established an account. I would never have sold a pre-order myself as you never know if you're really going to get one!

There are spots of dishonesty on eBay, but there are also a lot of systems being sold - so the average price is pretty reliable.

Re:Not number but price

[justchris]

Unfortunately, it isn't reliable, at least not right now. I was watching ebay last night, and there were groups of people spamming all PS3 auctions up to $99 million, pretty much ruining the auction for people who actually wanted it. I can only assume it was sour grapes of people who couldn't get one to resell on ebay.

Re:Not number but price

[Raenex]

Tremendous demand is better reflected in eBay prices than in it being sold out (which means nothing because they are so few in number).

I agree. I'm looking now at recently completed auctions. Here's a fun one: New_Playstation 3_Sealedinbox@hotmail email address PS3

Some guy sold a hotmail email address for $100.

Ok, besides that, here are the 10 most recent prices (with shipping costs included if listed):

• $1,115 -- 60GB. Japanese version.
• $1,115 -- 60GB. Japanese version.
• $1,327 -- 60GB
• $1,199 -- 60GB
• $1,025 (Reserve not met) -- 20GB
• $1,456 -- 60GB
• (no bids) -- 20GB
• $1,175 -- 60GB
• $1,575 -- 20GB
• $1,350 -- 60GB

So I guess all those people who thought they'd get $1,500 to $3,000 in profits just got a pay cut.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[Anonymous Coward]

So Mr Game Developer why do you need a 4 dimentional matrix to store transformations in a 3 dimentional game? What size of matrix do you need for a 2 dimentional game?

You don't. A 4x4 matrix is completely suboptimal for storing transformations. A quaternion with a translation 3-vector can hold all the same information with just 7 vs. 16 values. (Actually, you only need 6 values if you use Euler angles, because there are only 6 degrees of freedom, but then you get into problems with compositing operations.)

However, the 4x4 matrix uses homogeneous coordinates, which are convenient from a mathematical point of view, so they're nice and easy to work with. But no, they're by no means required; most of the values are, in fact, redundant, and you often can omit calculating certain values by leveraging symmetry.

That's what bugs me about game developers. They treat all the mathematics behind it all like rote, without understanding the fundamentals behind them. In fact, that's true of programmers in general. I suppose we can't all become math majors, though. Somebody's gotta think of the k-ary space trees.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[AArmadillo]

Perhaps you should take your own advice. A quaternion is simply another representation of a subclass of 4x4 real matricies.

Wii vs XBox360 vx PS3

[voxel]

The way I see it, quite simply:

1) XBox360 $399
        - Best graphics for HDTV gaming
        - Best online experience
        - Best media support with online movie/video purchases.
        - Secondary HDTV movie because of HDTV addon and missing DVI/HDMI connection.

2) PS3 $599
        - Second to the 360's graphics with launch titles.
        - Unproven online gaming experience.
        - In theory, we are lead to believe that the system won't be used to full potential until developers figure out how.
        - Best HDTV movie support from integrated Blu-Ray player and full HDMI support.

3) Wii $249
        - Most original user controller design giving a hopefully useful and non-gimiky method to playing todays games and designing new games that will only be available on the Wii
        - Unproven online gaming experience.
        - Only about twice as graphically capable as a Gamecube, most likely being about equivalent to the original XBox, perhaps a bit better.
        - No HDTV movie experience, or even DVD experience.

So, if you agree with me (god I doubt that will happen), then it should be obvious the PS3 is the worst choice to make here if you absolutely had to run out on Sunday to buy a gaming system. It is absolutely the most financial risk, with no to-date benefits versus the Xbox 360 to the gamer. Note, the keyword is GAMER, not a movie watcher.

It's clear to me the winner is the Xbox 360 for HDTV online gaming experience. If you want a new way to play games, it's the Wii. In my book, the PS3 doesn't qualify for anything, Blu-Ray is too cutting edge, no movies to watch, no idea who will win the format war. The PS3 is too expensive. It's been shown in multiple games now that it suffers frame-rate and online play issues versus the 360's version of the same game.

Personally, at $250 and a way I can get my Wife to play some games, and have fun parties when people come over, I am absolutely picking up one of these little bad boys.

I'll wait a bit to give the PS3 a chance to redeem itself, and if it can't within the next half a year or a year, then I'm picking up a 360 for some HDTV online action. Heck the premium system will probably be $299 by then and maybe even come with a bigger hard disk.

The only thing the PS3's good for to me is to resell on ebay, which I won't do.

Re:Wii vs XBox360 vx PS3

[Anonymous Coward]

Only about twice as graphically capable as a Gamecube, most likely being about equivalent to the original XBox, perhaps a bit better.

I'm sorry, but did you play any GC games? Don't go by specs! The GC might have been a poorly-specced machine compared to the Xbox, but it was capable of graphics as good as, if not better than Xbox graphics (Resident Evil 4 anyone?). Based on that logic, the Wii should be twice as good...

Re:Wii vs XBox360 vx PS3

[ShadowsHawk]

Disclaimer: My wife hasn't played any console since the NES and hates the modern control setup. My wife insisted on picking up our preordered Wii on Saturday night. We played Wii sports until 3am Sunday morning and 12:30am this morning. I think I can safely say that she LOVES it.

You know its true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funnyest thing is they all will be buying a PS3 or a 360 becuase the Wii simply doesnt have what it takes to run the top of the line, the state of the art games which the hardcore gamers want. Sure they'll do what they did with the GameCube, "oh, this is my fav, its so cool and trendy" but when they realise they cant jack fools in high res, when they cant have shiney cars, when they cant have lighting that isnt from the quake beta then theyll sehll out the cash.

Beer grammar nazi

[5c11]

-I love Belgium beers. The U.S. buys Budweiser.

I know I know, off topic, I'll get modded down and all that, but they're Belgian beers. Not Belgium beers. Never Belgium beers. Unless you also enjoy Germany beers, England beers, America beers, etc., which seems unlikely.

Re:Beer grammar nazi

[Total_Wimp]

Thank you. Seriously. It seemed wrong at the time, but I had a massive brain cramp and couldn't remember (Belginians? Belginites? Belerinas? Damn!). Seriously, it's been bugging me for hourse :-)

Business strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Wait for Sony to release crappy PS3.
2. Wait for 100,000 crappy PS3s to his eBay at $50 each.
3. Buy 50,000 of them and a screwdriver.
4. Rip their Cell Broadband Whatever hearts out of them with the help of the screwdriver under a full moon while cackling maniacally.
5. Transplant the hearts into 50,000 Blade Server boxes and sell them to Enterprises at low, low prices thus undercutting IBM.
6. Profit!

My 1 hr experience...

[loconet]

I just came back from Yonge & Dundas Square in Toronto where Best Buy setup a tent with xbox360, PS3, and Wii stations amongst other older consoles. I'm not really a hardcore gamer but I just went there to see what the hype was all about (only a few seconds walk from my school).

During my stay I have to admit that I spent most of my time "looking" at the PS3 games. The graphics and animation really caught my eye. The graphics offering by the wii looked pretty much like a previous generation console. However, rather than "looking" at the wii games, I jumped in and tried the wiimote. I can see how that little device is going to invite a whole new generation of gamers. It was fun and easy to use.

In all, like most people,I found that while the PS3 looks way better, the wii is more fun to play with. Now, don't get me wrong, they were given away free PS3s this afternoon every two hours when your name was selected in a raffle and I would have most likely screamed and jumped with excitement had my name been called for one of those PS3s.

Kids siding with Wii

[robogun]

There just was a news spot on Channel 10 News in San Diego. In the back of the store they had a PS3 and a Wii set up They brought in a bunch of self-confessed gamer kids as testers.

The kids were impressed by the PS3 graphics and detail (they had it on a 100 inch HDTV) but 3 out of 4 chose the Wii on the basis of the controller.

I've only ever owned Nintendo consoles

[pandrijeczko]

I'm a PC gamer at heart and I cannot think of one game on the PS2 or XBox that I cannot get on the PC that would ever cause me to even consider buying one of those consoles - or even a PS3 or XBox 360.

Additionally, I don't like the way either Sony or Microsoft do business and would consider myself a hypocrite if I bought any more of their products - yes, I've bought MS branded mice and joysticks in the past, I've paid MS for occasional OEM pre-installed products and there's probably a few CDs in my music collection that are ultimately distributed by Sony. But that's as far as I ever intend going with either company.

On the other hand, my Gameboy Advance, together with a handful of game carts like Scrabble, Ultimate Card Games and Tetris is fantastic for plane journeys and my Gamecube gives me access to some great non-PC titles like Metroid Prime, Legend Of Zelda and a few wonderful party games like Super Monkey Ball which are a refreshing break from LAN gaming with a few drunk friends.

I probably won't buy a Wii immediately - especially as I'm currently revelling in a whole host of cheap used games for my Gamecube. But if Nintendo continue the tradition of releasing a few choice Wii-exclusive titles, I will definitely be buying one when they've come down in price.

I don't for one minute doubt that Nintendo have exactly the same aims as Microsoft and Sony in making as much money from games as possible - but the fact is, I "like" dealing with Nintendo because they just want to make money from good games without trying to constantly screw over the customer in the process. As long as they continue in that fashion, I will buy their products.

Re:I've only ever owned Nintendo consoles

[McKing]

Hear, hear!!

This is exactly the way I feel about the three companies.

A few months ago, my kids and I were discussing what they wanted for Christmas this year. They started going on about the PS3 (in the past, they have had used PS1, N64, and GC consoles, as well as a variety of gameboys). We had a really good discussion which ended up with me stating that I would pretty much only consider the Wii, simply because Nintendo has never tried to screw me over in any way (I paraphrased that part for the littler ones). I can't imagine Nintendo screwing me over in the future either.

Nintendo is all about selling me a console or a handheld that is fun to use, and has fun games to play on it. That's it. A simple transaction. I give the guy at the store some money, and he gives me a console and a game or two. I go home and play it with the kids, and we have a good time. What happened to a company doing one thing and doing it well?

I don't want a "media center" taking over my living room (which is what both the PS3 and the XBox360 are really trying to accomplish). Microsoft and Sony both want to rule my digital world and keep a steady flow of cash going from my pocket to theirs in a variety of ways, especially Sony. Sony, by the way, nows controls the entire media chain from the media creation, to the distribution, to the player, and now the HDTV (and you thought the PS3 was about the games?). The PS3 is really all about the Blu-ray and HDTV.

I hate them both. Forced upgrades from one crappy OS to the next from MS, vendor lock-in like you wouldn't believe, DRM out the wazoo. One part of Sony sells MP3 players and minidisks, and then another part sues people who rip music. Un-be-freaking-leivable.

The irony of the situation is that the online stores attached to the Xbox and PS3 don't interest me in the least (neither do the price tags), but the ability to plonk down $20 online and get 4 older games on the Wii (or 1-2 slightly newer ones) is just my cup of tea.

I've always been a PC gamer, but MS is making that harder on me every day, and I'm getting burned out by the hardware churn. It's getting tougher every year to justify replacing perfectly good computer parts because I want to play the latest and greatest. I've never actually purchased a brand new console before, but I just may find myself picking up a Wii for the kids instead of a new motherboard and CPU for myself this Christmas. I'm actually excited about a console for the first time, ever.

Increase the pixels, increase the required art

[LordZardoz]

As you increase the graphics capability of the target platform, the required art assets increase as well. However, while the pixels only increase by a factor of 4, the amount of graphics resources, and the difficulty of creating them, increases by much more than a factor of 4.

To put it simply, it takes longer to model and animate a character with 100 000 polygons than it does to do the same to a character with only 1000 polygons.

Lets start with the basic geometry. A faster machine can draw more triangles. Animating a low polygon character is easier than a high polygon character (fewer verticies to account for). What might have looked good enough on a low end machine will need alot more work on a high end machine. You also start having to worry about level of detail. With a faster machine, you will have to draw objects that are farther away. You still dont want to draw it at full detail though, so you make a low poly version of the same object, and decide which set of geometry and textures to use to render it at run time. So instead of making 100 enemies, your essentially making 200 (albeit half are simpler).

And lets say you add physics and destructible objects to a game that did not have them before. So now when you shoot that crate, it shatters and its bits fly around and bounce. Ok, now in addition to modeling the intact object, you have to figure out how your going to render its shattered parts, and you have to add information for things like friction and mass, and take the time to fine tune those values.

On top of that, the more game assets you have to create, the longer it takes to process all those goddamn polygons and textures when compiling the level data into a playable level file. At the start of each new console generation, it takes a while before your working on machines that can process all those disparate files. When the artists are making the levels, to test them they have to export them, play them and then tweak them. More detail means it takes longer to iterate on the game assets.

More Art means More Artists means more money.

And of course, the PS3 is nothing like the PS2, so you have to throw out or retool a great deal of tech.

Want to know why the Wii will do well? Its meant to handle geometry about on par with a standard XBox, so there its easier to generate art assets. Its api's are nearly identical to the gamecube, so about 90% of the old tech and tool chains are still viable. And the dev kits are cheap. The Wii is getting alot of developer support because its much easier to make a profit on its launch titles than it will be for a PS3 launch title.

END COMMUNICATION

Excite Truck

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I finally got to touch a Wii at Game Crazy and I played a round of Excite Truck. Friggin fantastic game. Even had a panic fast button press ala Excitebike. The controller worked flawlessly.

How much does it cost to become a licensed studio?

[tepples]

But doesn't it cost at least an order of magnitude more than $2,000, $10,000, or $20,000, to get the game console companies to even look at your company and grant it a license?

SIXcite TruXIS?

[tepples]

So even if you could provide full speed emulation of the Wii, you wouldn't get to use a Wiimote, which is likely going to ruin many of the games.

A lot of games will make limited use of the Wii controller. Specifically, Excite Truck with its mechanic of holding the Wii Remote sideways looks like it was designed more for a SIXAXIS than for a Wii Remote. Then route the rumble signal through the subwoofer and the in-controller speaker through the rear speakers.

Re:How much does it cost to become a licensed stud

[jackbird]

Not necessarily. I know some guys developing an XBox live arcade game on the cheap after work, and the part where MS said OK already happened.

Bezier?

[tepples]

it takes longer to model and animate a character with 100 000 polygons than it does to do the same to a character with only 1000 polygons.

But you can cut down on the number of polygons that the artist needs to actually touch by using Bezier triangular patches.

You still dont want to draw it at full detail though, so you make a low poly version of the same object

Which can be created from the same Beziers used to make the high-poly version, with bump mapping filling in some of the details. In traditional cel animation, there are two kinds of animators: leads and in-betweeners. Leads make the keyframes; in-betweeners pad it out to 12 fps. Likewise, in 7th generation video games, lead modelers make the high-poly models, and in-betweeners operate polygon reducer software and make tweaks to keep reduced models from looking like utter crap.

And the dev kits are cheap.

Will Nintendo sell dev kits to just anyone? Or does a company requesting a Wii development license first have to have completed a commercially published PC title?

Wouldn't matter to seller...

[SuperKendall]

If I were the seller I would (A) sue the people to hold them to the amount they agreed upon, and (b) cancel all those bigs and take the last, most reasonable one.

If eBay can't so something to stop unreasonable bidding like that it could threaten the whole service.

Edgy Move

[themindfantastic]

the PS3 is probably a wonderful machine but I won't be getting one, because as many others have said its not really doing anything NEW. I have to give hats off to Nintendo for going in a new direction with its controller. Many companies would shy away from such an edgy move like this, because you make something that sucks and sometimes you don't get a chance to learn from your mistakes. If the Wii takes off and becomes a hit, how long before MS and Sony make their own variations of the Wii controller? If the Wii isn't a hit, do you think Nintendo will be able to come out with another machine or will it throw in the towel? Im hoping for the former, but the consumer will be the final arbiter of this.

AI on games is as advanced as it needs to be

[cgenman]

No offense to your overall comment, but AI is as smart on consoles as it needs to be... which is to say, not very. A dumb AI will bounce back and forth in front of your line of fire. A smart AI would sneak around you and shoot you in the back of the head before you saw them. A dumb AI will fire randomly in your general direction. A smart AI will draw a bead and get repeated headshots and bodyshots.

Which sounds like more fun to play against?

Re: Waiting on a PS3, and 360.

[trdrstv]

I hear ya. I personally have a rule of 5 (games) before buying a system. The Wii does that at launch surprisingly (I'm big on local multiplayer party games). The PS3 has only one Exclusive I really care about. 'Lair'. Factor 5 makes great games, and that looks awsome. I've been FF'ed out, and MGS just isn't as compelling as it used to be either. Assassins Creed was finally announced for the 360, so my list of compelling 360 games has hit 3. 2 more compelling titles, and a price drop I'm there.

DMC4 could end up on the 360 as Capcom has become very multi-console as of late. Personally can't come up with 1 compelling reason to buy a PS3 before holiday 2007.

Re:Wait a year... for something worth playing...

[trdrstv]

I own an HDTV, and will be getting a Wii at launch. The only games that look exclusive & worth playing on the PS3 will be arriving second half of 2007 anyway, so why buy one now? The Wii has a strong launch lineup, and solid titles for all of next year. I don't expect it will be over shadowed anytime in 2007.

Rez ignorance continues.

[Inoshiro]

Shaun, just to let you know before you sound dumb, there is no such thing as 720i.

SDTV -- 480i.
EDTV -- 480p.
HDTV -- 720p, 1080i (and later 1080p was added).

Some betacams had video that could be upscaled to 720i so that it could be reinterlaced to 480p, but that's it.

Waa!

[seebs]

And I can't get one, because apparently, Nintendo isn't shipping enough. The local market is getting about 10x-15x the number of PS3s they had. So, instead of being sewn up by the day before, they're just all sold out now.

Wii is bringing some fun

[zombiecat]

and character back to a ho-hum console gaming scene.

IMO the last console with any real character was the Dreamcast. Unfortunately, the planets weren't in line for that system but it has proven to have made a lasting impression on users of that system. There was a real breath of fresh air there. It turned into a gasp but it was there.

Where is the fun now? Playstations have always been rather ugly, as have other systems from all brands. Yes the guts matter and of course the games, but I have never felt "attached" to either flavor of my PS2s like other systems with more of a unique experience. In the flurry and often the drudgery of individual game ad compaigns, what ties everything together as a branded experience. A big ugly brick with no character. Black and white ads with crows for god's sake? I for one am tired of the "serious gamer" image and platform meaning that a system has to have the charisma of a bi-polar dictator.

I've had great experiences with many PS2 games and somewhere down the line I will of course play PS3 games, but the thing is ugly (I know I know...internal power supply, tech advances, etc.), somehow intimidating-looking, too damn expensive (3DO?), overhyped, ugly logo'd, and unsupported at launch.

Look at the Wii campaign. It's bright (gasp...yet N still managed to get a goth kid in the early promo pieces). People might look silly playing it. It's cheaper. Yes yes...but not as powerful. Maybe it's time to look a little silly. And it's all tied together with a cool fresh look and a cast of characters and titles that have proven to be fun over and over. Maybe the current political climate and so forth has the public wanting something lighter for consumption. It's a philosophy and launch "campaign" to get excited about.

The Nintendo DS is huge because of game variety and word of mouth. The Wii promises the same type of experience on a bigger level. The PS3 just unfortunately looks like Gloom and Doom and with the game reviews I've seen, again unfortunately, it appears to actually be so for a while. So, blood and guts on the Wii might not look as realistic as that on the PS3. What I see here with the Wii is something like that little indy film that conquers the box office because it touches a nerve. People are excited and Nintendo ain't paying them.

Perhaps the Dreamcast was, alas, destined for failure during the time it was release. It's looking like the Wii is destined to give semi-bored gamers and new players something to feel warm and fuzzy about. A charming console and enjoyable games.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[pommiekiwifruit]

With unit quaternions you can sort of kind of get away with just storing 3 values and calculating the fourth, although you have to be careful with interpolation (some sort of gimbal problem might turn up). Still, that is nicer than interpolating euler angles, and saves space in your animations.

Re:Reminds Me Of A Conversation...

[pommiekiwifruit]

Silly person, there are places where real life console developers hang out. It sure as hell isn't a place where all the little fatbabies trash migrated to...

Ah, perhaps you are in marketing or HR and they wouldn't let you in :-)

OK that might be a bit harsh of me...

I take it you are not a fan of Mr Larry Giddon then; however you have undermined your point about game developers never commenting by your admission of various chat groups' existance. I find thechaosengine to be entertaining anyway, although I thought some of the fatbabies email list messages were... unprofessional... so I never got into that.

And the point is, you as an AC are deprecating gamasutra/game developer. When I wrote a couple of articles for them many years ago it was mostly fanboy/amateur orientated. But it is much more serious now; they have a large mindshare amongst real developers.

As for PS3; if I work on a PS3 game I won't mind at all. I will get a Wii myself for updates of zelda/mario, but then I bought a PS2 well after a gamecube, when it started to get good (third party) games on it. OK, I bought it for Kingdom Hearts.

got a wii!!!!

[TheRealRamone]

didn't wake up until 10:00 AM but managed to snag a wii after 4 hrs waiting in line. i'm utterly pleased with the wiimote concept. terrific system. blows its competition out of the water. shame on slashdot for not covering wii launch day. --RR

Graphics on the Wii

[sherriw]

Did anyone play Resident Evil 4 on gamecube? Frickin gorgeous! If the Wii is 'only' twice as powerful as the GC then I'm already blown away. Can we put this whole argument to rest now? How many people have a HD Tv? And who REALLY puts that much stock on graphics these days? Pffft- you want reflections on the belt buckles of the enemy? Play PC games. Otherwise just shut up about the whole 'only twice as powerful as the GC' crap.

There, I've said my peace. :)

Re:Yes, but, or why America is more

[Total_Wimp]

I've heard all kinds of numbers from all kinds of people, but 80k is the smallest yet. It's super small. Please show some sources. Pretty please. You wouldn't take that number from me either if the situation was reversed.

Re:Yes, but, or why America is more

[WillAffleckUW]

Sorry, it's after release day, but when I think I gave that number it was based on the print edition of the Wall Street Journal.

I'm assuming you've seen the news since then. I think the last numbers I saw recently seem to say that Nintendo is shipping 1 million by year end, but Sony says they shipped 400,000 (including the ones they brought in by air freight and the ones they have on ships right now).

I for one only think the retail sales numbers are the actual ones we should pay attention to, and they won't be out until January 15, although we should get some preliminary numbers around Dec. 15 for the Close of Day After Thanksgiving sales totals.

Hope this helps.

Re:Yes, but, or why America is more

[Total_Wimp]

That does help quite a lot. Thanks!

Wii wins the launch numbers

[not-enough-info]

It really doesn't matter what you think of the Wii. The lines waiting for teh PS3 this morning were completely full. The prices on eBay are already legendary. You won't see that with Sunday's launch of the Wii.

Actually, I did see full lines at the Wii launch. Admittedly, the Wii lines only started around Friday and there was a conspicuous lack of muggings, shootings, and tramplings. But at the Target I got my Wii at there were 120 units sold with at least a hundred people turned away.

As for those "legendary" ebay prices: $999,999,999.00 bids? pwned.
Completed ebay listings for PS3s today: ~$1200. Wii completed listings: ~$500.
Both going for around 200%. Given that there was a whole lot more Wii demand slaked by the launch, I'm confident to say that the Wii is winning.