PS2 the Most Played Console In 2008

An anonymous reader writes "In terms of console usage, the aging PS2 still leads the competition, according to data from US research firm Nielsen. Data the company compiled between January and October 2008 shows that the PS2 commanded 31.7 percent of the total number of minutes spent playing consoles. Only 37.9 percent of play time took place on current-gen systems, with the Xbox 360 (17.2 percent) leading the Wii (13.4 percent) and the PS3 (7.3 percent). Users even spent more time playing on the original Xbox (9.7 percent) than the PS3, while Nintendo's GameCube (4.6 percent) wasn't far behind Sony's new console either." World of Warcraft once again topped the most-played PC game list by a large margin. Tetris was the top mobile game, followed by Bejeweled and Guitar Hero III.

Comments

And some of us

[reboot246]

are still playing on the old Atari 2600. :)

Re:And some of us

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember playing Abes's oddworld exodus on ps1, good times :)

Re:And some of us

[SemiSpook]

Now, to be fair, are you talking the original, the Sears clone, or the repackaged version?

And sadly, Stella doesn't count, although you can pretty much find the entire library online with a little digging.

Re:And some of us

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you and your shitty wood paneling. Colecovision forevah!

Re:And some of us

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has an illegal Mexican population of 20 million. The US has a black population of 36 million. I prefer Jews any day.

Funny,

the US is a country of immigrants... it is only fitting that the whites be made minorities in the end, just ask a REAL AMERICAN (Native). That's Karma baby!!!

The problem is with all of you white ass, suit wearing, money hungry whores, not any other ethnic groups.

Down with Whitey!!!

Re:And some of us

[spiderbitendeath]

Not sure about you, but I play my Atari VCS.

Re:And some of us

[Anonymous Coward]

Cartman has a slashdot account?

Re:And some of us

[Anonymous Coward]

Would 2600 games on the 7800 count?

Re:And some of us

[Anonymous Coward]

Your trolling sucks compared to Hitler Jr's up there. Take a lesson, son!

Re:And some of us

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, please ask a real american.

--Amerigo Vespucci

Re:And some of us

[delysid-x]

"Natives" are immigrants too, just a few thousand years earlier.

Minutes spent correlation to items

[Thanshin]

During 2009 people have spent large amounts of time in apartments, compared to palaces.

We consider that odd, as we thought living in a palace would be more enjoyable for most of people. We aparently were wrong, people would rather live in 150m than in 5000m.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but what? 30 to 1 in the USA when rich is defined as $80,000+? I think you're the one living in a reality distortion field. Over a quarter of households earn more than $80,000 a year. Wikipedia is always a good idea before you start posting asinine statistics that have been pulled out of the rear end.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[BlackCobra43]

I know the PS3 is expensive but, come on, a palace joke?

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

households != people

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

Then wait, do you think the average journalist pulls in over $80,000 a year? Clearly you've never worked in the field.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[feepness]

I know the PS3 is expensive but, come on, a palace joke?

I think he is referring to the PS2 vs any next generation console. Compared to all the next generation consoles the PS2 is significantly cheaper in both hardware and games. While the PS3 has dropped 33% and the 360 has a stripped down $200 box and the Wii is still $250, the price is still way higher than the previous generation in TCO.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe if you were not RAGINGLY STUPID you would understand that households does not equal people.

how about you go and get a basic education and come back and join the discussion.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. Personally, I'm happily living on about EUR 16k per year. USD 80k may not be gold-plated-Ferrari-driving "rich", but it sure as hell is wealthy, enough so that a PS3 is not a hugely significant expense.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[TheRaven64]

I was actually tempted to pick up a gamecube for exactly this reason. They can be had for around fifty quid on eBay with four controllers and a handful of games, and the games are cheap too. And, since the Wii is compatible with both the games adn the controllers, I can then pick up a Wii when they come down in price.

I remember the end of the C-64 era, when you could pick up games on tape in supermarkets for around 3-5 pounds. Even inflation-adjusted, this is a lot less than games for current consoles, but fairly close to the cost of games for the previous generation.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[FredFredrickson]

As somebody who does mostly PC gaming, I did just this. Stopped at gamestop (oh the horror) and picked up a used game cube.

Sure, it's last weeks breakfast, but man, for somebody who doesn't really play consoles to begin with, I had a good time with Smash Bros, Zelda games, and DDR Mario Mix.

I'll probably get a WII in 4 or 5 years when the next gen comes out... that is, if they're not as scarce then as they are now.

The interesting thing I found about the old gamecube is that I spent just about $50 on the thing, which is good- but the used games were still damn close to $60 each. PC games that old either get removed from the shelf, or cost about $19.95 at your local game store. Not neccessarily a good thing.

Also- I can't imagine PS2 games being terribly cheaper than PS3 games (however I don't price them regularly, seeing as I don't own either), but it seems that a lot of the major titles (rock band, guitar hero) are being developed for both platforms. Seems game makers are not terribly interested in the piddly market for the PS3, and so there is no demand to upgrade to the PS3, because PS2 still plays a lot of new games.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that even journalists can't understand the fact that the poor outnumber the rich ($80,000USD+) nearly 30 to 1 in the USA and 200 to 1 globally.

It's the rich reality distortion field. They think they are normal and not privileged.

Where do you get the idea that 80K USD is rich?

According to Senator John McCain, 250K USD isn't even rich, 250K is only "well off".

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[skeeto]

Right on. Riding just behind current gen for consoles is the best way to do it. Everything is really cheap, and all the games have been played by lots of people, providing a solid quality filter when making selections. Today, with $100 you could get a PS2 and around 15-20 games for it. PS3 costs don't even come close.

My fiance did this; she picked up a used PS2 and now we can grab new games for a couple bucks at a GameStop. She also has an old Xbox, so I picked up KotOR 1 and 2 for $~5 each. And I am not even a real console gamer (I generally despise consoles for crappy controls).

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

$80,000/year defined as rich? LOL says who? I make $80,000/year, I am FAR from rich!

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Gizzmonic]

The interesting thing I found about the old gamecube is that I spent just about $50 on the thing, which is good- but the used games were still damn close to $60 each.

Shop around, you can even get AAA titles like Resident Evil 4 for $25 now.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[halcyon1234]

The interesting thing I found about the old gamecube is that I spent just about $50 on the thing, which is good- but the used games were still damn close to $60 each.

I hear you. It seems that the good gamecube games are kept high in price because you can play them on the Wii. So Paper Mario isn't an 8-year-old game for an ancient console-- it's a title for a current gen system featuring the company's flagship character. So it's "expensive"

Used PS2 games are kept a bit high because the console is, as the article mentions, still quite around. Having visited a lot of EB/Gamestops over the holiday, they're average $10-$20 for the "older, not bad" games. This is probably also factoring in the fact that some people have a backwards compatible PS3, and it's possible that sometime in the future, all PS3s can become backwards compatible with the right firmware update.

Original XBox, on the other hand, is more or less an abandoned console. There's some backwards compatibility, but Microsoft seems to be going the downloadable-content route for popular older games. I was picking some really good Xbox games for less than $5 (Doom 3, most any Project Gotham game, any Silent Hill I could find), and in some cases $1 or less (Cold Fear as a prime example, Brute Force). Even though they were released at the same time as their PS2 counterparts, and often for the same price, there just isn't a current demand for the discs.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Malevolyn]

All I know about journalists is that they're usually somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs begin to take hold.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Endo13]

I highly recommend doing exactly that. There's a handful of games for the Cube that will give you a lot of mileage, especially with friends. You'll probably want to pick up Super Smash Brothers and Mario Party 5 for starters.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Bender0x7D1]

It depends on where you live.

If you have to spend almost $2k/month on rent in a 1-bedroom apartment, that $80k isn't going as far as you would like. If you are married, with children, you better hope your spouse works. Even with the housing bust, in some areas you can be paying over $300k for a house in a nice neighborhood. (And I'm not talking about a McMansion, either.)

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is a good part of why Senator John McCain is still Senator John McCain and not President-elect John McCain.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[MrMista_B]

Well, you're wrong.

People can /afford/ to live in 500m, vs 5000m.

Pretty huge distinction there.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd put a rush on the Xbox games, Gamestop's gonna stop accepting them as trade-ins soon.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[philspear]

Well, if you're implying that the reason people played the PS2 more than current gen systems is because they're all poor, I'd say that's probably not the major cause. After all, it's not like playing games on the PS2 is free while playing them on the wii is an arm and a leg. It's cheaper yes, and the games too, but it doesn't SEEM like it's a gap that means most people can't afford it.

Of course, it does strike me that the order PS2, wii, 360, PS3 is increasing in price and decreasing in playtime, but I still think it's more related to game library, with the wii being an exception due to the controller.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand. Can please make that into a car analogy?

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[D66]

All I know about journalists is that they're usually somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs begin to take hold.

Best reply ever!

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you familiar with the internet meme "facepalm"?

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Sparr0]

Yeah, but no one has to spend that much. You spend it because you want to. No one needs to live in Manhattan, or downtown LA.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Sparr0]

Says the 90%+ of Americans (or 99% of everyone else) living on less.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[mattack2]

I don't have any of the current consoles. But aren't the downloadable "old games" (and I realize some new games) in the $5 range most of the time?

I think I've only paid more than $20 for one PS2 game I have (including shipping). They seem to drop down to $20 or lower eventually (even the non-Greatest Hits versions).

Actually, the removal of the backward compatibility in PS3s makes me likely to delay getting one even further. (I probably will eventually get one, especially to use as a BluRay player.)

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[mattack2]

"over $300k"? Really *much* over $300k. You can get some 1 bedroom condos in the $300k range. $500k+ is where houses are in the SF Bay Area, and that's after the prices having gone down.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo. The PS3 looks like great fun, but it's a lot of jack. I'm sure I must know people with one, but nobody I talk games with physically does. People balk at the price. The PS2 is ubiquitous, a few people have added Wiis, and there's a small number who jumped at the 360 when it was new.

I live in a fairly wealthy country (Canada) so I think it's reasonable to say the PS3 is "palace" oriented. It requires the top-end of dedication or disposable income.

It's worth adding that a good number of people helped justify their first PS2 because it doubled as the DVD player. PS3 just doesn't have that sort of broad middle-income hook. It's pure top-end.

[Preference disclaimer: My gaming units that are currently plugged in are PS1, PS2, and the PC. I like to game, pay attention to game releases, have a wish-list of fairly obscure Japanese titles, but I'm really not hard-core and am platform agnostic. I game a little for fun.]

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, the only console I own is a ps2 that I picked up 8 months ago, which I got for free, and all the games I have are free too. Including 2 controllers and 4 memory cards

It makes more sense for me to stick one generation behind in consoles, as it doesn't burn a hole in my wallet(Especially being a student with little disposable income).

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't have to be NY or LA. It might just be suburban VA, for example.

You live where the work is.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm mostly a PC gamer but my girlfriend got me a PS2 for my birthday - it was the perfect gift! Years worth of awesome games at bargain bin prices.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[donaldm]

If you take a look at the PS2 library of games and their prices the PS2 has just about everything at the right price for everyone. All the other so-called "next gen" consoles in comparison to the choices on the PS2 pale in comparison.

I have a PS3 (backwards compatible) and a Gamecube (fairly well gathering dust now) that I mainly play and while I do have some good PS3 games I still find myself coming back to play PS2 games since the graphical difference between PS3 and PS2 games is not hugely significant compared to the graphics of PS1 games. Basically this means a good PS2 game on a BC PS3 looks graphically nice on a HDTV and for me there are still many PS2 games I would like to play at a price I can easily afford. I know many people would say "gameplay not graphics is more important" however my reply to that is good gameplay and good graphics make an excellent game while good gameplay and poor graphics makes for a mediocre game at best. Of course bad gameplay and excellent graphics still makes a bad game.

To put this in perspective my PS3 gets the following use. 5% to play DVD's, 10% to play Bluray, 25% to play PS3 games, 55% to play PS2 games, 2% to play PS1 games and 3% as a media centre. When I play PS1 games on my PS3 to my HDTV I remember how I originally liked the game and now even though the graphics has been unscaled to my HDTV the graphics would look better on a small standard def TV.

Of course, it does strike me that the order PS2, wii, 360, PS3 is increasing in price and decreasing in playtime, but I still think it's more related to game library, with the wii being an exception due to the controller.

From my perspective I don't have an Xbox360 (I don't like Microsoft so sue me) or a Wii even though I have had all the Nintendo machines from the NES to the Gamecube. Basically with the exception of the Gamecube which hardly gets played now I use my PS3 for about 2 to 5 hours a day whenever I can get my son off who would play GTA IV for 6 hours given the chance.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[donaldm]

I don't live in the US but I have found in Australia Gamecube second hand games stay at a significantly higher price than second hand PS2 games. Comparing PS2 game prices to PS3, Wii and Xbox360 game prices is no contest, the PS2 games are significantly cheaper usually between 30% and 50% and new games are still being made.

Seems game makers are not terribly interested in the piddly market for the PS3, and so there is no demand to upgrade to the PS3, because PS2 still plays a lot of new games.

Err where did you get that from, you have been listening to too many fan boys. There are almost 20 million PS3 world wide and considering the Xbox and the Gamecube only reached approx 24 million each over a four year period before they were discontinued so the PS3 has not done that badly considering that the PS3 has not even been out two years in European and Asian/Pacific markets although in the US and Japan it has been out just over two years. It is only the US market that has the Xbox360 leading the PS3 by a significant margin although that could change this year. Game designers can see this and many PS3 and Xbox360 games are coming out multi-platform with the small exception of some exclusives.

You are right in that the PS2 does get new games however if you have a decent HDTV you can see that the PS2 game graphics (also the Wii's) does not compare to the PS3 and the Xbox360 games. My PS3 does play PS2 games and the up-scaling to a HDTV does look nice but no more different than comparing upscaled DVD movies to BD movies. Still watchable and playable in the case of PS2 games though although I can't say the same for PS1 games unfortunately.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[randyest]

90% of Americans do not make less than $80k/year. Get a clue.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Sparr0]

This makes me the 17th person in this thread to point out that households and people are two different things. Even if you ignore the money required to support children, the mean number of earners in the 97.5-100k bracket is 2.12, which is 46.6k per person. Thanks for linking to statistics that prove that you are wrong.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[randyest]

Even if you're including infants and children, which apparently you are in a totally ridiculous and unfair effort to be "right" in the face of being obviously wrong, the fact remains that 90% of Americans do not earn less than $80k, and you have utterly failed to substantiate that ridiculous assertion. And why would "the money required to support children" be in any way relevant if we're simply discussing the percentage of Americans making less than $80k/year?

Yeah, sorry, but your "clever" calculation does not support your assertion, which is no surprise because well, it's wrong.

Also, it is fortunate that your "17th" claim is, like your "90%" claim, is an exaggeration, because it would be sad to have 17 people in one thread as confused as you are.

Re:Minutes spent correlation to items

[Sparr0]

A couple with no children both work, and make a combined total household income of $100k. Do you understand that this means they both make $50k (or, at least, that is the average of their two incomes), and that is less than $80k per person?

If you add two children then you have a household income of $100k/yr supporting four Americans, but since I know you object to including children we don't need to consider that. The previous example shows that even if you only include income-earning adults, they still make less than $80k each.

Wow

[sleeponthemic]

Congratulations to Nielsen on their fully accurate statistical analysis. Particularly obtaining data for predominantly offline consoles.

Re:Wow

[trolltalk.com]

"Congratulations to Nielsen on their fully accurate statistical analysis. Particularly obtaining data for predominantly offline consoles"

Remember, 87% of all statistics are pulled out of someone's ass. The use of a "fudge factor" comes into play here.

BTW, let's put it into perspective. The Wii is a lot more demanding, physically, so you're not going to have those 12-hour marathon gaming sessions on your Wii Fit (if you can find a store that has one in stock).

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you actually understand how Neilsen ratings are obtained, or were you looking for the +5 insightful from insecure PS3 fanboys who can't bear to see that people play their console less than the original Xbox, let alone the Xbox 360?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wii is a lot more demanding, physically, so you're not going to have those 12-hour marathon gaming sessions

Personally, I find it a lot easier to relax playing 50+ hour adventure games when my two hands don't have to be within a couple of inches of one another. Also, one-handed JRPGs on SNES9x = the ultimate in lazy gaming.

Re:Wow

[ravenshrike]

Considering that Nielsen doesn't publish their exact methodology, it's not like you know any better. This was almost certainly a survey. Especially seeing as playtime as apparent to the user is not actual playtime.

Re:Wow

[Dadamh]

I really have to say that combining the phrases "pulled out of someone's ass" and "fudge factor" makes for a really distasteful image.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

At least I know enough about how they're measured that I won't make the assumption that it's somehow related to a console's online time.

Of the two options of Neilsen's metrics (survey or set-top box), neither really makes sense to describe as influenced by the nature of some consoles to be offline only.

Re:Wow

[Toonol]

Absolutely. Even if the Wii had absolutely no motion sensing abilities, its control scheme would still be a huge improvement. The ability to hold your arms apart should be incorporated into every controller from now on. I'd much rather play on (for instance) two nunchuck-type controllers than one dual-shock.

Re:Wow

[Kingrames]

well stated.
Is there any info on how many play sessions went on? I get the impression that there were more Nintendo Wii parties than PS2 bootups alone.

Re:Wow

[Atario]

They have kind of a history of this, seeing as how the vast majority of TVs are still totally bereft of Internet connectivity.

Re:Wow

[SailorSpork]

Actually, their Household Panel methodology is pretty well known. A certain number of households are tracked based on their media viewing and usage, similarly to how their TV viewing is monitored.

With the video game usage, there would be a box on top of their TV where they just enter which console they're using, and they just play while the device measures the time. Households are representative of a nationally representative population, so (as TFA notes) numbers are extrapolated from their sample to apply to the nation. Nielsen pays them to be monitored, so there is financial motivation to be accurate in their data reporting, and households generally get used to it fairly quickly. Nielsen Household panel data then becomes some of the most accurate and highly paid-for data available.

Wikipedia has some more information on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_Company

Re:Wow

[SL Baur]

Do you actually understand how Neilsen ratings are obtained

Probably not.

For the offline games, I would suspect they ask selected people to fill out a diary, same as they do with TV ratings, and the numbers will depend on the honesty of the people being polled[1]. For the online games, Blizzard knows exactly how much connect time a given account uses, but would they tell? (And would the guys who are playing multiple accounts at the same time count extra?)

A number they do not give, is out of the console gamers, what _was_ the average number of minutes played per week? Particularly in comparison to the 11+ hours WoW got. Inquring minds want to know!

[1] I was not, the one time I got a Nielsen diary, I just filled in whatever show I thought deserved a ratings boost.

Re:Wow

[Floritard]

Perhaps, but you certainly can't argue the correlation of these terms.

PS3 Can Play Games?

[craznar]

I've had one for a year as a Blu-Ray player and media centre - I never realised you could play games on it. Learn something new every day.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was a cheap linux protein bioinformatics server with an oddly nice interface, I wondered what the "play" part of the name meant.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[feepness]

I never realised you could play games on it. Learn something new every day.

You should check out what you're missing. The library has matured and is, well, just there. I can't keep up with the new releases I'm interested in playing at the moment. If you're on a decent screen the experience should be amazing.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[LordHatrus]

You should check out what you're missing - I hear they ported Linux to it :-)

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't keep up with the new releases I'm interested in playing at the moment.

Unfortunately, not all of us are interested in generic, rehashed FPS games played with shitty controls.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Gizzmonic]

Uh..hello, Little Big Planet, Valkyria, Rock Band, and Mirror's Edge!

It's still overpriced but not as much as you think!

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

• LittleBigPlanet is at best a tech demo. It plays like shit, and most of the user-created levels suck.
• Valkyria Chronicles is a mediocre tactical RPG. What's worse is that they're pissing on the legacy of Skies of Arcadia, which was easily the best JRPG of last generation.
• Mirror's Edge is overrated as all hell, and is available for the 360.
• The Rock Band series is fun if not particularly unique, I enjoy playing it on my 360, PS2 and/or Wii.

Yeah, the PS3 is a waste of money as a game system. Enjoy your long load times and shitty online play!

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Hatta]

I can't keep up with all the games from the 90s I'm interested in playing at the moment.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell is the parent flamebait? Hurt a poor Sony fanboi's feelings?

LittleBigPlanet is at best a tech demo. Strip out the whiz-bang 3D graphics and realize that the amazing physics engine really isn't amazing, and you've got a sidescroller that compares with Super Mario Bros. and is about as controllable.

Then you've got the level editor. Great. The most amazing levels have been, essentially, mechanical computers, and they're only amazing because of the shear amount of abuse required to make the level work. The rest of the community levels seem to be devoted to earning trophies with as little effort as possible.

The sales of Valkyria Chronicles speak for itself. There's a reason no one is buying it.

If you've played the Mirror's Edge demo, you're aware that it's crap. If you haven't, let Yahtzee educate you.

And if you like Rock Band, you're playing it on the Xbox 360, the platform it was designed for. Every other platform is a port. (Just ask Harmonix themselves - they write for the Xbox 360 first, and then port to other platforms.) If you bought a PS3 to play Rock Band, you're an idiot, pure and simple. The Xbox 360 is cheaper and Rock Band is designed for it. The PS3 version is an afterthought, and the PS2/Wii versions have issues with downloadable content - the Wii mainly with incredibly restrictive available storage space, and the PS2 with the lack of a harddrive on any current model.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

ah, they marked you troll. I'm guessing that was a reference to the whole Mass Effect thing. I thought it was funny (even though they were calling the 360 a sex box, not the PS3)

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[MemoryDragon]

20 dollars more per game than the better running pc version of the same game?
Is that what i am missing?

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[KDR_11k]

Better running? You mean lazy ports choked with nasty DRM and terrible framerates?

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you go with the version that's released through the Bittorrentâ Content Distribution Network, which is 100% cheaper and less intrusive.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[vux984]

If you're on a decent screen the experience should be amazing.

You pretty much sunk your argument when your experience comes down to whether or not you have a 'decent screen'.

If the game needs a decent screen to be an amazing experience, then its not a terribly good game, although it might have some amazing shiny graphics to distract you from this fact for a while.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[MemoryDragon]

Actually I have bought a radeon 4850 a while ago, and while this is not the top notch graphics card anymore I have yet to find a game which does not run in more than 60 fps with all the settings on at high.

The DRM is an issue which can be bypassed. I have bought so many games recently for the PC it is insane and mostly the graphics nowadays are better than on the console ports while having equal or better framerates.

The issue is we have now three years into the pipeline and as usual the mid range pc class now surpasses the latest console generation, as it always did since the ps1 came out!

The funny thing is, if you have a pc, spending 150 dollars for a nowadays mid range card probably is the cheapest option, if you count in that the games on the average are about 20 dollars cheaper it definitely is!
If you dont have a pc or notebook computer only then probably going the console route is the way to go!

Btw. as for poor framerates, and poor ports, the PS3 probably currently is the winner there. Most games are up to par being developed for the 360 and then ported to the PC, and the ps3 is merely an afterthought and that shows. The most recent example being Fallout 3 with the PS3 version being the worst of the bunch! But also the most expensive (thank Sony for that!)

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[MemoryDragon]

Actually despite the entire DRM issues, I personally found that the quality of the PC games has increased tremendously lately, gone are mostly the days of unplayable PC releases. I personally see it as a plus that the games are nowadays mostly developed for the xbox, the testing is definitely more heavy on them, and in some cases the xbox owners have to iron the bugs out until the cheaper pc version comes out!
The entire drm, depends on the heavyness for me, I can live with drm which does not rely on online registration, or which is non intrusive as steam, which fortunatly most pc games still are. If a game requires online activation then I either wait for the nocd "patch" or I simply dont buy it at all. I dont "buy" the games from bittorrent!

After being hammered into the console craze the last two years (I myself own a wii, a nintend DS, and a PSP) I reevaluated my gaming options for the high end and reverted back to the PC, it simply was the cheapest for me to shell out 150 euros for a decent graphics card which surpasses the power of the current console generation.

And so I did a few months ago! Given my current gaming buying habits, I probably already have saved several hundred dollars by now!

Since I am neither into shooters nor racing games the options on the consoles are more limited to me than on the PC!

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Super Mario Brothers had great control.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Dr. Manhattan]

How the hell is the parent flamebait?

Overstated points or invented points ("long load times and shitty online play") by an Anonymous Coward? How could it notbe? Normally I don't respond to trolls, but you managed to get upmodded and an educational opportunity is at hand.

LBP is a lot more than a tech demo. You don't get praise and scores like that from tech demos. I play it regularly, and so do my kids, and it's fun. And no, the physics is quite good. As to user-made levels - sure, there's a lot of crap, but since there's already more than 100,000 user-created levels, only a tiny percentage need to be good to make it worthwhile... and in my experience the percentage isn't all that tiny, plus the ranking system's gotten to the point where it's easy to find good levels. (My 8-year-old loved "Little Dead Space". :-> ) People who have no affection or affinity for side-scrollers won't like it. But then, people who don't like FPS won't like Halo. Oy. Of course, there's been a concerted effort by fanboys of other platforms to slam it, so at least you're not alone.

I'm not an RPG guy, so I can't comment on Valkyria Chronicles, but a lotta people seem to like it, though it's also not everyone's cup of tea.

Mirror's Edge? I found the demo fresh and interesting, but again, ultimately not my cup of tea. And yes, like Rock Band it's available for more than one platform... but if you have a PS3, why not?

Let's give you full credit and state that the PS3 version of Rock Band is a "port". Heaven forfend! What problems, exactly and specifically, does this lead to? You only mentioned PS2 and Wii issues, and while I'm sure they're fascinating and all, they're kind of irrelevant to the PS3.

I've got Singstar 'cause my wife likes to sing and she's good at it. Now the PS2 discs work with the PS3, too, and we can buy songs off the "Singstore". Sure, there's "Lips", which is apparently all right, but if you're worried about ports, then clones should terrify you...

The 360's initially cheaper than the PS3 (though that's in both senses of the term, unfortunately) and has a bigger library. No question. The Wii outsells both, and is more open to casual gamers than either. There are reasons why the PS3 might not be the best choice for everyone, but neither you nor the parent hit on any of 'em.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but no matter how much the Sony fanboi crowd whines, LittleBigPlanet is still crap.

You don't get praise and scores like that from tech demos.

Remember Black & White? How about Spore? Tech demos get praised all the time.

And no, the physics is quite good.

Have you ever played the game? The physics are horrible.

First off, nothing bounces. Even Super Mario Bros. was able to get things to bounce in its physics engine (namely Starman), and it doesn't really HAVE a physics engine!

Then it ignores Newton's third law. The only force things exert on each other are gravity. Rockets don't thrust things out of the way, and jumping doesn't send things down.

Really, the physics engine in LittleBigPlanet is as complicated as the physics engine in Crayon Physics. No, really, it is. If you watch the demo on that website, it looks almost exactly like LittleBigPlanet's physics.

Crayon Physics was written in five days by an independent developer. Gives you an idea just how "amazing" LittleBigPlanet's physics engine really is, huh?

Let's give you full credit and state that the PS3 version of Rock Band is a "port". Heaven forfend! What problems, exactly and specifically, does this lead to?

Really? You can't figure this out on your own? Ports always get content and bug fixes after the main version. They generally don't work quite as well as they did on their native platform. In Rock Band's case, you lose out on basically all the online stuff that you get through Live on the Xbox 360 since the PS3 doesn't have an online service.

but if you have a PS3, why not?

Well then go ahead, if you've already thrown your money down a hole, it makes sense to use the machine you already got. But if you're trying to decide on a PS3 versus an Xbox 360, the decision is a no-brainer.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Dr. Manhattan]

Yup, troll. Ignore any point I make, make stuff up if necessary. Ah, well, I've got a few minutes while the virtual machine boots up.

First off, nothing bounces... jumping doesn't send things down.

Ah, I knew it - you haven't actually played the game. One of the most frustrating points for me was those dang spring-mounted platforms that you have to bounce on to get launched higher. For some reason I have a hard time getting the rythm right, but my kids go flying around with abandon. Oh yes, I assure you, jumping does send things down.

In Rock Band's case, you lose out on basically all the online stuff that you get through Live on the Xbox 360 since the PS3 doesn't have an online service.

I'll grant that apparently some of the songs take as long as a week or so to become available on the PS3 compared to the 360 version... I guess that's the 'content... after the main version' bit. That's rough, I know. But as to 'online stuff'? Um... nope. Not true. Basically, with the PS3 version you get a wireless guitar, but with the 360 version, you get achievements. That's the only online difference I'm aware of - got anything else?

(Of course, all this ignores that the original troll was about someone noting that the PS3 had games other than "generic, rehashed FPS games played with shitty controls", and the list was examples of other games. Me, I actually like flOw and High Velocity Bowling and Echochrome and Monsters and Eden... not an FPS in the bunch. Motorstorm isn't a perfect game, but it's still a lot of fun, and impressed my 360-owning friend.)

Dude, if you want to attack the PS3, note things like the 360 getting more exclusive content (though much of that is because Microsoft can afford to essentially bribe developers for that) or the higher up-front price (though once you add in wifi and a hard drive, let alone a Live subscription, the price difference vanishes). Attack Home for being useless (it certainly is, for now at the very least, possibly forever). Attack the questionable decision to remove PS2 backward compatibility. Don't just make stuff up.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the most frustrating points for me was those dang spring-mounted platforms that you have to bounce on to get launched higher. For some reason I have a hard time getting the rythm right, but my kids go flying around with abandon. Oh yes, I assure you, jumping does send things down.

You know why you had trouble with that? Because the physics engine is retarded.

You'd think that jumping at the very bottom when the springs are most compressed would provide the biggest boost, since you'd send the springs down with the most energy, building up the energy stored in the springs.

Nope.

Because jumping doesn't cause an equal and opposite reaction, you only compress the springs by falling on them. If you jump at the bottom, the spring loses your weight pressing down on it, and so springs up. When it catches up with you, you'll have lost the entire height gained by your jump - so that your fall doesn't compress the spring as much.

Instead you need to time your jump just before the spring reaches the top. You need to do it early enough that you're still "on" the platform (can't jump on air) but late enough that you'll gain height so that your higher fall will compress the spring more.

Not how actual physics work, but, well, that's my entire point, isn't it?

Of course, all this ignores that the original troll was about someone noting that the PS3 had games other than "generic, rehashed FPS games played with shitty controls", and the list was examples of other games.

Oh, I agree, it has plenty of things that aren't generic, rehashed FPS games played with shitty controls. The correct statement is that all the games on it are generic, rehashed games played with shitty controls. It's certainly not limited to FPSes.

But, hey, since you've already used MetaCritic as some form of gold standard, let's use that. How many "green" games does the PS3 have? 126. The XBox 360? 212.

Of course, that's ignoring the backwards compatibility features of both consoles. When you count in the previous generation games, you add - oh, wait, the PS3 isn't backwards compatible any more. That's just an advantage for the Xbox 360. My bad.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[Dr. Manhattan]

Okay, one more, but only 'cause the straight line was so good.

You'd think that jumping at the very bottom when the springs are most compressed would provide the biggest boost, since you'd send the springs down with the most energy, building up the energy stored in the springs... Instead you need to time your jump just before the spring reaches the top. You need to do it early enough that you're still "on" the platform (can't jump on air) but late enough that you'll gain height so that your higher fall will compress the spring more.

Well, Isaac Newton you're not. Not even a Robert Hooke.

If the energy is stored in the springs, it's not available to you. How does the energy come out of the spring? By contracting. Exactly analogous situation: playground swing. If you're going for horizontal distance, when should you jump off? If you're going for vertical distance, when should you jump off?

Not how actual physics work, but, well, that's my entire point, isn't it?

I can see why you're posting anonymously.

As to the rest, at least you took one bit of my advice and attacked the removal of PS2 compatibility... though it was like pulling teeth to get you that far. That's a definite downside, though the 360 hasn't always done that much better.

Re:PS3 Can Play Games?

[spire3661]

I picked up a 4850 when my 8800 GTX died as a reaplcement while i was waiting on the RMA. I figured i would pop it into my media center after i got my 8800 GTX back. It works so well i jsut kept it and didnt bother sending in the loud and huge 8800 GTX

methodology

[gEvil (beta)]

Ah, so this is all based off of what, like 250 families in the US Heartland and what they chose to log in their little Nielson log books?

Re:methodology

[elrous0]

Hey don't knock that trailer park. They're the only thing still keeping reality TV going.

Not surprised

[shrykk]

I'm not really surprised - the PS2 has a huge software library, plus most owners have several peripherals that still prove useful. This weekend I played some Singstar and Guitar Hero III with friends, and I'd be more likely to buy more PS2 games that use the guitar and mikes, than to buy new peripherals (extra functionality and downloadable content notwithstanding).

In fact the Singstar game we played was a brand-new copy of the recently-released Singstar ABBA, and everyone loved it.

You can pick up used PS2 games for a pittance. I remember chatting to a store assistant in a games store, saying he was still always seeing parents come in and picking up PS2s with a bunch of games for the holidays. Console and a load of games well under 100 UK pounds, for which you can't really get another console (perhaps a DS or PSP with one game).

They're still releasing new games for the PS2, a pretty clear indication that it's still alive. No-one sane would advocate playing a cut-down and graphically poor PS2 Force Unleashed, but it's clearly still economically viable to release it. Though some would say the same for the Wii version. And, I don't want to arouse any fanboy ire, but I have a sneaking suspicion that similarities in graphical capabilities between the Wii and PS2 might help the economics of releasing a PS2 port... Anyway, there are a ton of PS2 games that are well worth playing - a brilliant last-generation game beats a mediocre current-gen one.

Everyone commenting on gaming stories should disclose their console preferences to discourage fanboy-ism. My TV is currently hooked up to a Wii, a PS2 and a Sega Master System.

Re:Not surprised

[Thanshin]

Everyone commenting on gaming stories should disclose their console preferences to discourage fanboy-ism. My TV is currently hooked up to a Wii, a PS2 and a Sega Master System.

How exactly does listing what you own discurage fanboy posts?

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly does listing what you own discurage fanboy posts?

Shhh! It doesn't. But it does give shrykk a chance to say to the world "Hey world, look how 1337 I am! I still have old consoles in my (parent's) house!"

Re:Not surprised

[Dutch Gun]

Console disclosure: own all three current gen systems, and still play my PS2.

I own the 40GB non-PS2 compatible PS3, though, and so have to switch over to my PS2 to play older games. About a year ago, I purchased a number of late generation PS2 JRPGs, since I had a hankering for them and had already played those that looked interesting to me on the more modern consoles (they seem to all be coming to the 360 now). Persona 4 was recently released, I'm currently wavering on whether I should pick it up (never played the Persona games before, and I'm not sure if I'd like the game's high-school setting, being an old fogey now).

My personal time percentages would probably be:

Xbox 360: 75%
PS2: 15%
PS3: 10%
Wii: 5%
PC: 5%

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone commenting on gaming stories should disclose their console preferences to discourage fanboy-ism. My TV is currently hooked up to a Wii, a PS2 and a Sega Master System.

How exactly does listing what you own discurage fanboy posts?

Pffft, just the kind of comment I'd expect from an Xbox-owner.

Sony Roolz!1!!11OnetyOneLulz!1!11

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

I would think it was because if he said that sega always made the best hardware, and he loves his dreamcast (hypothetical example here), that it might mean more to some of us that he is not a raving fanboy -- he does, after all, own and regularly use systems from nintendo and sony.

It wouldn't, necessarily, discourage such "fanboys" from making their comments, but it would shed a little light on those who might otherwise be perceived as one and blown off or laughed out altogether.

Re:Not surprised

[broken_chaos]

And, I don't want to arouse any fanboy ire, but I have a sneaking suspicion that similarities in graphical capabilities between the Wii and PS2 might help the economics of releasing a PS2 port...

The PS2 is graphically less capable than a GameCube. Any developer who is lazy enough to only dress up a PS2 game (considering the Xbox360 and the Wii both use DVDs - alleviating any storage space considerations) is not using the console to anywhere near it's full potential. Sure, it's not high-def (resolution equal to a DVD) or as powerful as the PS3 or 360, but it's not that far behind.

Re:Not surprised

[shrykk]

The PS2 is graphically less capable than a GameCube. Any developer who is lazy enough to only dress up a PS2 game (considering the Xbox360 and the Wii both use DVDs - alleviating any storage space considerations) is not using the console to anywhere near it's full potential.

You're almost certainly right - but I put it to you that developers don't always exploit consoles' full potential. Take some multi-platform franchise, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, maybe the Wall-E game or something like that, and you'll see a divide between the PS3 and 360 versions and those for the Wii and PS2. Perhaps we should forget this, after all any mediocre developer can make an ugly game, but it does contribute to the general impression. Gamecube ports don't help either, I enjoyed Zelda: Twilight Princess but it didn't wow me graphically.

Look, I love my Wii, but I watch Playr on Sunday mornings and the best Wii games don't look as good as the beautiful next-gen and PC games that are coming out. Wii graphics at the moment look a lot like the graphics of the later, and best-looking PS2 games. I'm talking about a console that has been around for donkeys' years, with software houses releasing their third or fourth title for the machine - all the tricks are known.

Now, the PS2 has a DVD drive as well. The issue isn't so much storage, so much as technical limitations to the numbers of textures and polygons that can be drawn on the screen, the amount of computation available to be devoted to nice lighting algorithms, physics simulation and so forth. Power will show in the end - I dare say the Wii games coming out in two years' time will look great and make my assertions about comparability with the PS2 look ridiculous.

Still, to get back on-topic, the PS2 is 'good enough', and has some games that really deserve to be played. I'm not surprised people are still using them.

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

I enjoyed Zelda: Twilight Princess but it didn't wow me graphically.

Speak for yourself. Things like polycounts, texture resolution and screen resolution aside, that game was beautiful from a purely aesthetic standpoint. I'll never understand people who bitch about the Wii's graphics capabilities. To me, beauty can't be measured by specs; I'm still wowed by the graphics of some N64 and Dreamcast games, and some current-gen titles look like complete ass.

Re:Not surprised

[Endo13]

The PS2 is graphically less capable than a GameCube.

Which unfortunately isn't saying much. The Game Cube did have a bit more graphics horsepower, but not by a huge margin. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain the Wii uses more or less the same graphics hardware as the Game Cube.

Now I know that doesn't sound like it, but I actually am more or less a Nintendo fanboy. The only new consoles I've ever purchased are Nintendo. Game Boy, GBC, GBA, DS, Game Cube, and Wii.

Basically what this story more or less reinforces is that most people care more about how much fun a game is than how pretty it looks. Which we've already known for a while.

Re:Not surprised

[Retric]

I have a Wii hooked up to a 55 inch 1080p TV. 360 and PS 3 looks good, old PS 2 games on the PS 3 look ok, but the Wii graphics are so bad I can't play it. I don't really care about the polygon count, but without AA all those jagged edges bother me. Now I am keeping the console around and I assume in a few years games will have fewer problems but for now I think the Wii was a swing and a miss.

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

next-gen

The consoles ceased to be 'next gen' when they were released. They are now the CURRENT generation.

Re:Not surprised

[UserChrisCanter4]

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain the Wii uses more or less the same graphics hardware as the Game Cube.

You're wrong. Although the official specs on the Wii's GPU (which is actally multiple chips on the package that handle I/O and sound in addition to video) are under wraps, it is definitely more powerful. Most indications point to it being based on the same architecture to maintain backwards compatibility, but it has a substantially higher clock rate (~240 mhz vs. 162 mhz on the Gamecube).

Even if we assume that absolutely nothing else changed on the Wii graphics hardware - which is a reasonable assumption - a nearly 70% bump in clock rate is a pretty big change if we're talking about the same architecture.

Re:Not surprised

[cymru_slam]

480p on a 1080p TV is going to be a lot of upscaling - being on a 55 inch TV is just going to make this worse - I don't get why your surprised by this. We have a 32 inch 720p TV and the Wii looks great on it - have no idea how it compares to 360 or PS3 on there as we don't have those. I don't think that your Wii will ever look better on that TV as you simply have a huge resolution mismatch. On the other hand, I am no Audio/Video-phile so someone else might know better.

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

a huge library that I CANNOT play on my damn PS3

Re:Not surprised

[IorDMUX]

Agreed. I am certainly a Nintendo fanboy, but I am one of those pushing the PS2 stat through the roof, for just the reasons you mentioned.

I own an NES with 60+ games (though ~15 are $1 total-crap-games), an N64 with ~25 games, and a PS2 with 5 PS2 and 4 PS1 games. Over the past few months I have disproportionally favored the PS2, pouring hours into Final Fantasy X, FF XII, Deus Ex, Burnout: Revenge, and the Mega Man X collection. I picked up the system used with controllers and memory cards for $40 US (it needed some cleaning to make it work, but it whirrs away just fine, now), and found of the games used at GameStops and the like.

Total price of everything I've spent on the system + accessories + game library? Maybe $100. That $100 has given me access to an amazing library of classic (remakes of Mega Man X, Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI, Deus Ex, etc.) and modern (the graphics on FF XII and Burnout: Revenge are comparable to early PS3 graphics, as long as you don't have an HDTV) games... why should I shell out three to four times that amount for a "modern" system?

Oh yeah. Halo 3. I still do long for thee, but it was not meant to be.

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Twilight Princess looks great on my 64-inch 1080p plasma display. Either your TV sucks, your eyesight sucks or you're doing it wrong.

Re:Not surprised

[Retric]

I only tried Resedent Evil 4 and Wii Sports, but the mix of jaggies and up scaling was painful. I expect the console could do anti-aliasing if they lower the polygon count, but I have yet to see it. I suspect it would work much better on a smaller screen or with a better game, but don't really feel like messing with it.

PS: Metroid Prime looked great on the Game Cube so I might want to try MP3 it with the Wii unless you have a better suggestion.

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

That's about 50%. You should be able to do that in your head.

Re:Not surprised

[UserChrisCanter4]

My mistake; by using the word "bump" I phrased it as an increase (it is 50%) rather than as a percentage of the old one's powers (167.5%). My math was right, but my wording was wrong.

Re:Not surprised

[KDR_11k]

Of course but the difference isn't so big that people will refuse to buy your game if you make it to PS2 standards (or, in some cases, PSP standards...).

Re:Not surprised

[KDR_11k]

Dunno, I can't get myself to touch the PS2 anymore. The system's atmosphere (color output or something but there's always a certain something that makes a PS2 game feel like a PS2 game and the association for me is darkness) is just appalling and now that I have plenty of games that aren't on the system I'm playing those instead. Though honestly if someone asked me which PS2 games I'd recommend I'd have a hard time answering because I don't feel like any of the ones I played (which I'd have to count but I'd guess 30-40) were worth recommending. Even the ones that were considered great games everywhere tended to have some flaws that would keep me from recommending them. Well, okay, Earth Defense Force 2 definitely deserves recommending, Okami to a lesser degree as well. Maybe I just picked the wrong games but even ones like God of War, Ratchet & Clank 2, Devil May Cry 3, Final Fantasy X, Odin Sphere, etc felt uninteresting.

Re:Not surprised

[Dutch Gun]

the graphics on FF XII and Burnout: Revenge are comparable to early PS3 graphics, as long as you don't have an HDTV) games...

Ugh... I was right with you (I've been doing the same thing), but I couldn't let this one slide. I run my games in standard resolution (all three current-gen consoles + PS2), but on a reasonably large screen (it's pre HDMI, and the component-based HD modes flicker, so I can't really use them). Yes, I've played FF XII, and it's a great looking game on the PS2, but...

There is a MASSIVE different between the worst looking PS3 / Xbox 360 games and the best PS2 games in terms of graphics. Keep in mind, this is using 480p on the PS2 with component cables, so it's as good as it gets for that system. Games on the PS3 and 360 are rendered internally at higher resolutions before being scaled down, as well as employing full screen anti-aliasing, advanced shader effects, better lighting, etc. So, just because the screen resolution is the same doesn't mean you can't see a significant difference.

I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy your PS2. Goodness knows I still do - I still have a backlog of JRPGs I'm planning to play at some point, after all. But don't kid yourself about how much better the new high-end consoles look, even at the lowest available resolution.

Re:Not surprised

[rujholla]

Can I get some of those meds too so I can play 110% of the time? /duck

Re:Not surprised

[clickclickdrone]

>Wii uses more or less the same graphics hardware as the Game Cube.
The Wii is supposed to be 50% more powerful (which isn't saying much). Most developers still use Gamecube devkits for Wii games so they are by and large very similar architectures.

Re:Not surprised

[TheThiefMaster]

?

It is 150% of the old one's power. How are you calculating 167.5%?
The old one is 67.5% the power of the new one, but that doesn't mean that the new one is 167.5% of the old.

Re:Not surprised

[UserChrisCanter4]

By being a moron and attempting to comment at the same time I was answering a different question from someone in the room; I simply had the order flipped.

Is this by console or by actual game?

[feepness]

I'm curious if this includes time on the actual console or if backwards compatibility is counted? If I play PS2 on PS3 or Gamecube on Wii does that go to PS2 or Gamecube?

Re:Is this by console or by actual game?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's self reported statistics. Which means that if the kids don't record their time playing a game the parents might record it themselves. Knowing this, I'm surprised we don't have more kids listed as playing "Atari".

Re:Is this by console or by actual game?

[dontPanik]

I believe this is by console. I participated in a part of the survey by phone and the questions were directed towards hardware and not software.

Re:Is this by console or by actual game?

[Shadow Wrought]

I participated in a part of the survey by phone

Out of curiosity, was it via landline or cell phone? I know a lot of households are dropping landlines, so I wonder how much that can skew such a survey.

Re:Is this by console or by actual game?

[dontPanik]

It was by landline. I would hate to have random numbers calling my cell.

Number of games vs consoles vs time spent

[4D6963]

Translation : people spend the most time on the console they've got the most games for.

Would have been interesting if they tried to correlate the number of games owned per console vs. the time spent on each console, and see what the difference is between generations (i.e. if you have 10 Xbox 1 games and 10 Xbox 360 games you'll probably spend more time on the Xbox 360, but how much longer?)

Re:Number of games vs consoles vs time spent

[hansamurai]

Not sure if I buy that. I have something like 50 SNES games and 40 N64 games, but only 15 DS games, but I play my DS more than anything. I think the translation is that people play newer systems more, but that they take a few years to reach the point where enough gamers have them to play.

Re:Number of games vs consoles vs time spent

[Bender0x7D1]

You are comparing apples to oranges. The DS has a different form factor and resource requirements.

You can easily take the DS anywhere you want and, (especially important in a multi-person household), you don't need to tie-up the TV to use it.

Re:Number of games vs consoles vs time spent

[4D6963]

You'd be more likely to buy it if you had read the whole post rather than just the first line. Read the last sentence.

Re:Number of games vs consoles vs time spent

[Kayot]

You really should consider getting a DS SD Card/3 in 1. I have all of my fav SNES/Gen/GG/GB/GBA/DS and a bunch of home brew all on the same card. If only some one could find a way to emulate N64 on the DS... That would complete the DS heaven. That and X-com 1 and 2 as DS games. As for the PS2, after I got mine modded and started using HardDrive Loader, it wins hands down. FF12 looks amazing and shows the potential for newer ps2 games. And putting the cd book away in exchange for a single 250gb hd is priceless. Not to mention a whole lot faster. I heard that theres even talk of a ps1 emulator for the ps2 so I can put all my PS1 titles on the HD too (With save state no less, beats pulling the cds from the cases to play them). However, I am not a ps2 fanboy. PC is the god system here, all other systems must make offering of burn toast and jelly as all other systems bow before the pc.

In other news

[SupremoMan]

Scientists were shocked to discovered that when PS3 was released all PS2 consoles around the worlds did not spontaneously explode!

Maybe Sony should build them less sturdy? I mean who ever heard of electronic device that can lasts for 5, hell 10 years!

Re:In other news

[jollyreaper]

Scientists were shocked to discovered that when PS3 was released all PS2 consoles around the worlds did not spontaneously explode!

I think the surprise is that penetration of the new consoles into the market is not greater. Since there's surprise, this probably means that the uptake of new systems is moving more slowly than with previous generations. I think this will be shown as a product of extremely expensive consoles, a dysfunctional economy with increased job insecurity, and the sheer penetration of the PS2, the best-selling console ever. Lots of people are able to justify putting off the upgrades because it's "good enough" and there's still a large library of games out there they likely have not played.

This is similar to Microsoft's position where Vista simply doesn't offer a compelling reason for people to upgrade -- in the case of the current-gen consoles, they are demonstrably better than the previous generation but not enough so to convince people to get up off their wallets.

Re:In other news

[CronoCloud]

Early model PS2's the 10001's and 30001's, are prone to DRE's (Disc Read Errors) after a few years, the bane of any PS2 owner. Later model PS2's are the sturdy ones, the 50001's and 70001's.

Re:In other news

[CronoCloud]

As a PSone owner, I attempted to buy a PS2 on it's US launch on Oct 26 2000, but couldn't get one due to the shortages, I finally was able to find one in stores in March 2001.

As a PS2 owner I did not attempt to get a PS3 on launch day. Not that I didn't want one, but considering the game library and the price, I wasn't in a rush, the PS2 was good enough. I finally got a PS3 last July. Sony needs to get more RPG's on the PS3, then all those PS2 RPG fans will have a reason to get PS3's.

Re:In other news

[Chris Burke]

Scientists were shocked to discovered that when PS3 was released all PS2 consoles around the worlds did not spontaneously explode!

So mine was the only one? That figures.

Re:In other news

[MemoryDragon]

hint to sony, bring out another ps3 with backward compatibility and sales might jump up again.
There is a shitload of ps2 owners who simply did not upgrade because there was no upgrade option!

Re:In other news

[KDR_11k]

Screw backwards compatibility, release one for 200€, then people might care more.

Then again I don't think it's the price that makes them lose to the Wii...

Re:In other news

[MemoryDragon]

You cannot cut it down to one point. I personally think that there are three factors.

Lack of PS2 compatibility which made a load of PS2 owners not upgrading. (Basically nobody wants two consoles in front of the TV and nobody wants to push the games which partially are still played pushed into the next gamestop!)

The other one is that you basically can enjoy the PS3 really only with a modern TV, while the number of HDTVs sold worldwide is picking up significantly, do not underestimate the number of people who still use tubes!

Third it is still the price and face it when a wii goes for 250 and an xbox around 200-250 who really buys a ps3? Especially since the games tend to be more expensive than on the PC WII or XBOX!

I personally think that Sony might see a huge load of new sales if the readd full PS2 compatibility again at the current price. I think a huge load of PS2 owners would reconsider buying a PS3. But that would mean to add the custom PS2 processors again to the console and that would drive the costs up. The reason why Sony dropped it in the first place!

Re:In other news

[KDR_11k]

Meh, I got my 360 plugged into a crappy (and by that I mean blurry) old CRT, the games aren't much worse from it (except the tiny fonts many HD games use are hard to read, SD consoles tend to use much larger fonts). If people wanted to play PS3 games they could do so even on crappy old CRTs.

The lack of PS2 compatibility is probably not much of an issue now, I see BC mostly used before a console has built a decent library of native games and from what I heard the HD consoles have a decent library already (yeah, heard, most of that library seems to be designed for people that aren't me so I can't say much about it myself).

I'm not sure games on the PS3 are more expensive than on the 360 (they certainly cost way more than Wii or PC games which is kinda ridiculous when the same game goes for 70€ on the HD consoles and 45€ on the PC).

I don't think the price is that big of a factor. The 360 is cheaper than the Wii and still getting beaten by a large margin (Nov 08 had about 800k 360s sold and over 2M Wiis IIRC). Sure, it doesn't have PS2 BC either but its library seems to overlap strongly with the PS3's so if the interest was there it should at least sell the 360.

What is wrecking the PS3 and 360 is the focus of their library, it feels much narrower than the PS2's. You get grey-brown first person shooters and grey-brown third person shooters (or at least that's what it feels like when looking at the shelves). Oh and the Dynasty Warriors clones seem kinda prolific. I wouldn't be surprised if many people simply didn't switch because there weren't many compelling titles available (sure, there are a few in different genres like Little Big Planet but a single game isn't enough to make a good library).

Between the focus of the HD library on brown-grey shooters and the Wii library on party games (yes I know there are first party games but they're few and not everyone likes every single of them so the effective library of them is smaller) it seems to me like there are massive segments of the market with no compelling reason to buy any of the current generation consoles yet (didn't e.g. all jRPGs so far suck?). The download services are currently much more interesting than the retail shelves but it seems that XBLA got typecast as the service for dual analog shooters (which are all implemented badly, haven't seen any exceptions yet) which hurts it badly.

All current gen consoles are pathetic compared to the DS.

Re:In other news

[MemoryDragon]

Dont underestimate the importance of backwards compatibility. Microsoft could only get away with it by first of all having not too many users in the first place on their old xbox and at least having some backwards compatibility.
Sony went in record time from, we do a 100% support (but only for the US people lets screw the europeans), to we from now on only support a handful of games to. Sorry guys, you are screwed, no compatibility, same price.
Add to that that outside of the PC the PS2 has probably the biggest library of games ever built for any machine. You simply cannot tell 110 million possible customers, forget hundreds of dollars of investment, buy the new machine and drop all your old stuff. Nintendo learned that the hard way with the N64, since then they try to add the full hardware of the last generation into any new console, Sony seems to have yet to learn this lesson.

If you want to keep your games more or less backwards compatible then I would say, forget every console, still go for a PC, those beasties still even play the old Zorks done in 1982 :-)

Re:In other news

[MemoryDragon]

The prolific domination of shooters on consoles is interesting. It probably has to do with the fact that the most dominant engine on those and probably the first being ported was a shooter engine. This reminds me on pc gaming a few years ago, when almost every game was a shooter either based on the quake2 engine or the unreal engine!
It was almost like there was no other genre. Exactly the same companies were dragged onto console gaming mainly by microsoft and the xbox, and the results can be seen, endless shooters almost no risk in interesting gaming ideas anymore.
The funny thing is, while the Wii is critizied with having mostly party games and now seems to drown in shovelware, it still has the best mix of genres, outside of the PC! The pc on the other hand seems to thrive currently mainly by the works of smaller studios and independend game studios, while the big companies just release improved console ports!
(The small studios serve the function of xbox live and the sony store, but with much more games)

Not that surprising

[Spatial]

Considering how well it sells:
PS2: 140 million
Wii: 45 million
360: 27 million
PS3: 19 million

As of 2006, it was still the best selling console. I don't know about the last two years but I'm guessing it isn't doing too badly.

Re:Not that surprising

[randyest]

While the PS2 has sold the most, it has also been out far longer. "Most sold" is not the same as "best selling" if you mean "best selling now" which is what that phrase usually means. In fact, Wii has outsold the PS2 since the Wii has been released, which means the PS2 has never been "best selling" compared to the Wii except before the Wii existed. Even the XBOX360 outsells the PS2.

That's Amazing!

[egcagrac0]

I thought IBM discontinued the PS/2 15 years ago. It's amazing people are still using them.

Re:That's Amazing!

[tepples]

I thought IBM discontinued the PS/2 15 years ago.

That joke was old by the time the GameCube came out in the fourth quarter of 2001.

and the language is ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what (natural) language was this survey written/asked in ?

surely China, who now has more online users than the USofA - just for a comparison, or other Asian countries might not always have the English skills to answer a survey "from US research firm Nielsen"...

when will people realise that "US stats" do not mean "world stats" ?!?

cheers

Note to moderators:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sitcom joke.

PS2 has biggest library of games

[mikeabbott420]

Two things

PS2 users are more likely to have a bigger library of games because they're are more of them, they are cheaper and there has been more time to accumulate them.

people with more time than money (esp kids) are relatively more likely to be PS2 users
people with more money than time are relatively more likely to have newer consoles

this doesn't seem like a strange result to me.

you guys are lame

[bigplrbear]

Sega Dreamcast is what it's all about!

PS3 got the shaft

[Jahf]

I've got a 360 (admittedly only because work wanted me to have it for a demo) and a PS3. I bought the PS3 for BluRay but I find myself playing on it more and more.

I have played on the 360 a good bit, but I find it is loud and I like having controllers on the PS3 that are rechargeable without buying more stuff. I also find that, oddly, the PS3 controller works better for me. I thought the 360 controller was better at first due to the way it seemed to fit my hands better. But it is heavier and the battery pack is attached in a way that cramps my fingers.

I also like the networking options on the PS3 better.

Overall I think the PS3 is a great box that never caught on. This past holiday season I noticed that the 360 and Wii had more than 2x the shelf space for accessories. And Rock Band 2 took a month longer to come out on the PS3 than the 360. So it is no wonder that the PS3 is essentially dying out. You can't sell people what they can't find.

I will definitely be sad if the PS3 goes into "unsupported land" as soon as it seems to be. But it will still be useful both as a BluRay and as a large-screen linux box (which I've found pretty darned handy) for some time to come.

My gf has a Wii that we played alot over Christmas and it has alot of family-style gaming capability. However they weren't games I'd pick to play solo. Hopefully someone in the "4th gen" realizes there is a market for both family-style/kid games AND a console with more potential as a media and networking hub.

Re:PS3 got the shaft

[Dr. Manhattan]

Overall I think the PS3 is a great box that never caught on

Yup. Maybe it still will, as the graphics start to get better than the 360 and developers have an easier time working with it, but the window for that is closing.

For my purposes it's a really good fit. It's more expensive to start, but it's all-inclusive (no extra $100 for wifi, etc.) and there's no ongoing costs like XBox Live. It plays media well, Blu-ray is nice (for F/X heavy movies), on a nice big screen (and with the keypad) it's actually a pretty good web browser, etc. I bumped mine from 40GB to 80GB essentially for free, as I had a laptop SATA drive laying around. And I haven't had any disc scratches or RROD-style issues.

And then it plays games, too. My kids and I have been having a lot of fun with LittleBigPlanet in particular, and there's already more levels out there than anyone could ever play.

Re:PS3 got the shaft

[Chris Burke]

My gf has a Wii that we played alot over Christmas and it has alot of family-style gaming capability. However they weren't games I'd pick to play solo.

Heh, that's funny, because when people come over and see I have a wii, they're always rather shocked that I don't have any multi-player or party games other than wii sports. :)

Re:PS3 got the shaft

[KDR_11k]

4th gen? How are you counting that? Are you counting eras instead of generations (pre-crash, post-crash 2D, 3D, motion controlled? Heh, that could probably be phrased as joystick, d-pad, analog stick and motion control...)?

There is a market for both the simple console and the media hub, the media hub's just seems to be smaller.

Re:PS3 got the shaft

[Jahf]

4th gen as in "the next round".

Re:PS3 got the shaft

[HiVizDiver]

I've had essentially the exact experience as you. All around (now that the library has finally started picking up some steam), it's an excellent console. I was an original Xbox owner, only console I've ever owned. Got the PS3 as a Blu-ray player, and found out quite accidentally about its strengths as a media center console (hint: it's amazing). Add to that the library of games has finally gotten interesting (I'll admit it was a wasteland for the first year), and I'm pretty pleased with it.

Unfortunately, as we all know, you can't say anything positive about a console without the owners of one of the OTHER brands taking some weird personal offense, regardless of the brand, so I expect to get modded into last week. :)

Re:PS3 got the shaft

[clickclickdrone]

>developers have an easier time working with it
All the developers I know badmouth Sony big time for their lack of support. A friend told me that as a rule of thumb, if you contact Sony dev support with an issue, they get back around 3-4 weeks later with an email saying "it's in the manuals". Microsoft usually get back within 3-7 hours and often with code examples or a workaround.

Re:PS3 got the shaft

[KDR_11k]

But 4th counted from when? Did gaming begin with the Playstation for you or something?

Re:PS3 got the shaft

[Jahf]

Never heard of the PS3/Wii/360 called the 3rd gen? Get off the semantics please, it is petty, I'm just following fairly common nomenclature.

Re:PS3 got the shaft

[Jahf]

And fwiw, I've been gaming since Pong was first sold as a home unit. Oy.

PS3 Singstar plays PS2 discs now, too.

[Dr. Manhattan]

I picked up Singstar ABBA for the PS3. With the most recent patch, it can play the old PS2 Singstar discs, and the same microphones work for it. My wife's more likely to play it when it's up in our family room than down on the PS2 in the basement. (Hey, I like hearing her sing, she's good.)

Why spend $60 when you can spend $10?

[ACAx1985]

There's so many GREAT older gen (such as PS2) games that I've never played.. and I've played quite a few PS2 games. Why spend $60 on a new game (in addition to $300 on a new system) when I can get great games for $10-$20 on the PS2?

Missing handheld consoles

[forged]

Would be interesting to see just how much the NDS is trouncing the PSP. Just in this household me & my wife own one each; my in-laws have 2 more; and virtually in every home with teens that we visited last summer, there was 1 for every 2 kids on average or possibly more.

Backwards Compatability

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing I don't understand is why Sony killed the PS2 backwards compatibility in the the PS3. I know the reason they give -- cost. But to me it seems like a really stupid move. I bet with these results, they are probably thinking it too. At least I hope they are. I don't want another box cluttering up my living room (Wii, DVD/VCR, PS2, XBOX, cable box). I still play many of my PS2 games. I'm not planning to buy a PS3 until they return the PS2 capabilities (which would allow for a 1 for 1 swap) or until finally decide I want a blu-ray player (DVDs are still working fine for me).

Nielsen ratings are always a good laugh

[Shadow of Eternity]

Especially when they try to claim, with a straight face, that anything other than WoW has more playtime/players than Counter-strike and CS:S.

What i'd really like to see is a real count of WoW's actual individuals online at a given moment and not how many ACCOUNTS they have active at a given moment.

Noone is surprised that the PS2 is still played

[NimbleSquirrel]

...and this is exactly why Sony has shot itself in the foor by removing backwards compatibility from the PS3.

Re:Noone is surprised that the PS2 is still played

[Thag]

Seriously, with BC, upgrading to the PS3 from the PS2 is a pretty obvious choice.

Without it, if you're going to upgrade to something that can't play PS2 games, why not a 360?

I know several people who were once interested in the PS3, but completely lost interest once they found out you can't get PS/2 BC any more. They're in wait-and-see mode now, waiting for Sony to bring back BC.

Though, they still play PS1 games, FWIW.

Re:Noone is surprised that the PS2 is still played

[kaffiene]

Yup - I totally agree. I'm in the same boat and in fact I recently bought a second PS2 (first one had a dodgy power supply) and some wireless controllers rather than buy a PS3 SOLELY because of the lack of PS2 backwards compatibility. I would MUCH rather have bought a PS3 with BC - because I really wanted little big planet and MGS4, but without the BC it's not an option for me because I'm not going to have multiple consoles around the TV - that area's complicated enough as it is!

Not Surprised, Either

[DesScorp]

We've been slouching towards a recession for awhile, the PS3 and XBOX 360 were horribly expensive for what they do, the PS2 still plays great games and has a large user base... plus, it's what? Under $130 dollars?

My son has been asking for one of the next gen consoles, and I just won't buy one right now. I see I'm not the only one taking a stand on the price issue. If we get anything new next year, likely it'll be a Wii so that the whole family can participate. Lots of other customers seem to be thinking this way too... doesn't the Wii now lead the next gens in sales and adoption?

In the meantime, in my continuing quest to teach my children the value of a buck, we'll keep on using the PS2 for now, squeezing out all of the "value" from it that we can. Is there a better time than now to teach kids the difference between necessary and unnecessary expenses?

I'm almost surprised

[Aphoxema]

I know I'm not getting a PS3 until it's been broken (same with the PSP slim), I'm not getting a 360 because it's Microsoft, and I'm not getting a Wii because my friend lets me borrow his because I chipped it.

I'll be damned if I'll ever buy a game again without knowing if it's worth it first.

Counter Strike #1

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't CS be the top PC game then (426+282) > 671 ??

1 World of Warcraft Blizzard Entertainment 0.723 671 ... ...
9 Counter-Strike Sierra Studios 0.062 282
10 Counter-Strike: Source Valve 0.061 426

XBOX 1 Did...

[cyclomedia]

You can get new PS2 games still, and shops like Game(station) here in the UK also sell them second hand in 3-for-£5 like offers. But Xbox 1 games have vanished. From the bargain sections of supermarket Entertainment ailes to the big stores like HMV and Virgin, which is probably to be expected as there aren't any new Xbox 1 games any more, but the freaky part is that aforementioned Game doesnt stock the second hand Xbox 1 games anymore either!

I'd really like to know where the big pile-o unwanted X1 and even PS1 games are so i can buy them for 1p each, they must be SOMEWHERE! (Landfill, one suspects)