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In Japan, PlayStation 2 Ends a 12-Year Run
The PlayStation 3 may have overshadowed it technically, but the PlayStation 2 has seniority. Now, the PS2 is being retired in Japan after nearly 13 years. That doesn't mean the games have stopped: "To this day, developers have continued to release games on the platform due to its enduring popularity, with the last title in Japan, Final Fantasy XI: Seekers of Adoulin, due out in March this year."
Ah... the PS2. I don't think I can ever remember a console that's dominated its generation in quite the same way. I'm not just talking about unit sales (though its figures there and its lead over the Xbox and Gamecube were impressive enough), but rather about the sheer scale of the influence it exercised over gaming in general.
Back in the PS2's generation, if you were developing a console game, then unless you were being given bags and bags of money by MS or Nintendo, you had no choice but to make the PS2 your primary target. It didn't matter that it had underpowered hardware that was known for pain a pain in the arse to develop for. The Xbox and the Cube were optional. The PC (which was on a back-foot for most of that console cycle) was even more optional. The PS2 was where you had to be to get the sales. It had games from every genre represented; and often the best titles in their respective genres were for the PS2.
In many ways, it wasn't a particularly brilliant console. Its UI was butt-ugly. Cross-platform ports tended to look like a dog next to their Xbox and Cube versions (though the latter were admittedly quite uncommon). The memory cards for savegames were tiny, expensive and prone to data corruption. But it had the games, so if you were at all passionate about console gaming, you had to own one.
The funny thing is that, despite its hardware being completely obsolete, I've often felt Sony sent it to the back burner (via the PS3 launch) too soon. Both the console and its games were still selling well when the PS3 launched, with the 360 having failed to take much wind out of its sales. I do wonder what would have happened if Sony had held back the PS3 for 6-9 months, to work out some of the oddities in the hardware, let the launch price fall, get a stronger launch-lineup and maybe get proper back-compatibility into the hardware as a standard across the world. As it is, when the PS3 launched, it was too expensive for most and still suffering fierce competition from its own predecessor (some of the PS2's best games launched after the PS3, such as Personas 3 and 4). Certainly, for the first 18 months I owned my imported US 60 gig model, it spent far more time running PS2 titles than PS3 ones.
Nothing in the 360/PS3/Wii console generation has come close to replicating the PS2's dominance. The Wii got a big installed sales base early (which later stagnated, with the result that its lead, while still there, is much eroded), but never even came close to converting that into PS2-style dominance of games development. The 360 and the PS3 have more or less run neck and neck; if I remember, the 360 has a small worldwide installed base lead despite its Japan deficit, but the gap between the two isn't much more than a rounding error. And if you're developing a game these days, then unless you are being given large amounts of cash by a console manufacturer, you need to target the 360, PS3 and PC (the latter is very much back in the game), while giving consideration to the idea of a Wii-U port or a scaled down Wii version.
I wonder whether, to an extent, the PS2's dominance wasn't linked to Sony's ability to lock down what were, at the time, some of the biggest and most important franchises in the world to its console; Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo and Metal Gear Solid. Those were really the names that started shifting consoles (after what was actually a slightly lacklustre launch). These days, of course, all of the really big name franchises are cross-platform (and almost all Western, rather than Japanese). A couple of exceptions; the Nintendo first party games (not everybody's cup of tea), Forza (the 360's superior reflection of Gran Turismo) and the Halo/Gears vs Resistance/Killzone shooter pairings (where the games are essentially interchangable). But increasingly, it's cross-platform that dominates the charts (particularly when it features angry men with thick necks shouting "OSCAR MIKE" every 5 seconds).
PS. Another Final Fantasy XI expansion? My word. I stopped playing that years ago and didn't realise it was still going. It feels a bit like a relic from another world now; easy to forget it was probably the world's most successful MMO until World of Warcraft launched.
It was either released in march this year, or it is due to be released march next year, as we are currently in december
portfolio
to be fair FFXI: seekers of adoulin is an expansion to the FFXI game released close to 7 years ago now. it is not a full game and can not be played seperately without buying the original title from 7 years ago.
Boggle.
"It didn't matter that it had underpowered hardware that was known for pain a pain in the arse to develop for"
LOL! What delusional and rambling fanboy post would be complete without that tired old Dreamcast era bullshit being parroted.
"As it is, when the PS3 launched, it was too expensive"
The PS3 while 200 dollars more expensive than the Xbxo 360 outsold it easily in its first year and has continued to do so every single it has been on the market.
"Sony's ability to lock down what were, at the time, some of the biggest and most important franchises in the world to its console; Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo and Metal Gear Solid"
Are you fucking serious? Gran Turismo is a Sony first party title. The Metal Gear Solid franchise was never a Sony exclusive franchise. And after the disastrous Square and Enix pairing Sony had absolutely no need or desire to waste effort or money on exclusives from them. And looking back at the garbage Square Enix has put out this gen it is obvious Sony made a wise choice.
"These days, of course, all of the really big name franchises are cross-platform"
Are you really this fucking delusional???
This gen has been absolutely DOMINATED by first party exclusive titles. Nintendo's first party titles like Wii Sports and others have crushed any and all multiplatform titles by a gigantic margin. While Sony's first party developer line up has grown significantly this gen and dwarfed Microsoft's multiplatform dominated lineup.
"Forza (the 360's superior reflection of Gran Turismo) "
LOL, just LOL...
More liek 2013.
easy to forget it was probably the world's most successful MMO until World of Warcraft launched.
That's probably because it never even came close to that accomplishment.
The Xbox 360 has clearly been dominating this generation, just like the PS2 did.
Again we have another technology that ends its life without releasing any support for all the people who bought and own a PS2 only the released software is the only software that these devices can use with no more to be developed. What kind of support should they make? Simple release the dev sdk and codes to make disks for the PS2 now that they have no more financial interest in the device.
March of this year has already passed. I believe that they mean March 2013, which would be March of next year.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Not to nitpick, but the 360 has the lowest sales of the 3 consoles this generation - PS3 is ever so slightly higher, and the Wii is substantially higher than both. The 360 may be dominant in the US, but all other markets buck this trend.
... but it's way beyond the time to let it go. I remember back in 2006~7 when all the good games(at least here in Japan) were still being released for the PS2 while the PS3 was left to gather dust.
Now sony only needs to kill the PSP too, as it is cannibalizing all the sales the vita could have and as well as dividing developers (some are scratching their game's vita versions in favor of the PSP and others are developing for both).
Sony should learn that no risk no return. Apple kills successful products all the time in favor of better versions(ipod classic -> iDevices; macbook -> macbook air). If sony wants to be the Japanese Apple they could learn a thing or two.
I remember the excitement in the company when the first PS2 devkit arrived and were placed in a locked room. Only a few top engineers in the company had access to the room. People would come and stare through the glass at the devkit demos running on the screens and standing around chatting with the guys working on the PS2 hardware. And I remember the engineers holding mini seminars in one of the conference rooms diagramming out the amazing PS2 hardware architecture and how engines will be written for the hardware.
Sony did an absolutely amazing job with the PS2 hardware design. It was a system that much resembles some finely tuned race car that has had every single bit of wasted weight trimmed from it and setup so the driver can do one single thing, drive fast. Looking back at the PS2 code for our games it is wonderful to look at just how small and straightforward the PS2 engine code is. Pack as much data into DMA packets down to the point where not a single bit is wasted. None of the wasteful lines and lines of setup code one has to go through when writing engines for a desktop PC(or a desktop PC in console case like the Xbox).
It is no surprise Sony was able to keep the PS2 hardware viable for almost 13 years. Unmatched console hardware design and manufacturing prowess mixed with the best developer support and tools.
And Sony treats developers better than anyone else. They've always had the mindset of tell us what you need and well make it happen. Nintendo has always been too focused on their own first party titles and have always had an underlying attitude of 'we don't really need anyone but ourselves'. And Microsoft...I don't know where to being with how bad they are with supporting developers. The fact that they managed to piss off their sole important first party developer Bungie so much that they forced Microsoft to let them leave the company is a good an indication as any of just how bad Microsoft is with supporting developers.
GameCube: 32-bit PowerPC cpu
PS3: 64-bit Power + 8 128-bit vector units
Xbox360: Triple-core 64-bit Power cpu
Wii: 32-bit PowerPC
WiiU: Triple-core 32-bit PowerPC
IBM's Power architecture when performance matters.
"It's UI was butt ugly"
What UI? The delete memory card screen? The PS2 didn't really have an UI.
And nor has much since...
WoW increasingly looks like an anomaly. Very few MMOs have managed to go over 1 million subscribers and stay there. Old Republic almost hit 2 million at launch, but fell off very, very rapidly.
Having done a bit of reading since my original post, it seems FFXI managed to stay in the 500k-750k range for years and years. It's below that point now, but then, it's extremely old now. While it may only have managed not much more than 1/20th of WoW's peak subscriber base, it seems to have done better than almost all of the other competition.
Also massively better than its own successor, FF14, which remains one of the greatest MMO cock-ups of all time.
You were joking...right?
The Xbox 360 is in last place in worldwide sales this gen.
An absolutely mind boggling failure for Microsoft. The Xbox 360 was suppose to be the console where Microsoft recovered from the first Xbox multi-billion dollar fiasco and finally got it right.
Instead Microsoft:
* Killed off the first Xbox leaving pissing off developers who wasted resources developing engines for the console
* Rushed the worst console hardware ever created out the door that lead to the RRoD fiasco and many other hardware failures on a scale never seen before in the console market.
* The Xbox 360 launched a year early and a year and a half early in Europe
* The Xbox 360 launch price was 200 dollars cheaper than the PS3 yet the PS3 easily outsold the Xbox 360's first year and has gone on to outsell the Xbox 360 worldwide each year it has been on the market.
* Tens of millions Xbox 360 have been sold due to Xbox owners desperately hoping each new model that is released finally fixes the RRoD, the disc scratching drives, the absurdly loud noisy operation, etc.
All of that and Microsoft still has ended up in last place this gen. In a sick bit of irony, the only bright spot this gen for Microsoft has been the RRoD in that it helped keep them out last place for a little bit longer than they should have.
What is mind boggling about Microsoft's failure in the console market is instead of rectifying the reasons they are the last place console this gen, they have been making things worse:
* They have shut down almost all of their first party developers or let them go join multiplatform publishers. The one first party studio that mattered, Bungie, they pissed off so much that they forced Microsoft to let them leave. Boggle.
* The first Xbox was big expensive PC crammed into a big ugly black box. The Xbox 360 was junk hardware with wimpy graphics that got destroyed by PS3 exclusives this gen. Yet Microsoft has done nothing to develop the internal hardware design and manufacturing capabilities that would allow them to compete with Sony.
Instead Microsoft has bizarrely tried, and failed, to turn the Xbox 360 into a Wii like device by buying a company that created an Sony EyeToy clone.
Even more mind boggling is that even after six years on the market the Xbox's division is still either bleeding cash or just barely breaking even. And that is including all the other profitable products and services in the same division. The 50 or whatever the price Microsoft forces Xbox owners to pay them to be allowed to play online games should be generating many hundreds of millions of dollars a year in pure profits. The losses on the Xbox 360 have to be so large that even those extra hundreds of millions in profit each year can barely cover the losses on the Xbox 360 hardware.
Dumping the ten year long Xbox fiasco is going to be day one for whatever CEO finally comes in to clean up the mess Ballmer has created with garbage products like Bing, Xbox, Windows Phone, etc.
now the cashcow dries up for rambus, and they can fade irrelevantly into the night, never to be seen nor heard from again.
There's more to dominating the market than installed base - as I said in my original post, the Wii managed PS2-style sales in its early years, but never really dominated the scene.
I think the thing with the 360 and PS3 has been that, from the user's point of view, they're probably more interchangable than any other two consoles in history. Their internal architectures might be completely different, but in terms of overall performance, they come out in about the same place. In a technical sense, if a game can run on the 360, it can be made to run on the PS3 and vice-versa. Just as importantly, they've got controllers which, while different in appearance, basically have the same number and configuration of buttons. So the same game can be released for both platforms in a near-identical state.
There aren't as many exclusives as in previous generations and nor are those exclusives as likely to be "best in genre" as they have been in the past. Even developers who started out this generation tied to one manufacturer's hardware have branched out since into cross-platform (eg. Insomniac).
So whether you buy a 360 or a PS3 (or if you own both, which one you spend most time with) is likely to be influenced by some distinctly secondary factors. Do you believe in "patriotic" buying? I suspect a lot of people do, as evidenced by the PS3's advantage in Japan and the 360's in the US (while Europe remains a dead heat). Which controller do you prefer the ergonomic fit of? Which console do most of your friends own? These are much narrower factors than the essentials that set apart the Xbox and the Gamecube, the SNES and the Genesis/Megadrive and the Playstation and the N64.
I don't think this console generation has had a winner. The Wii took an early lead but squandered it (check Nintendo's financials for the last couple of years, as opposed to the specifically gaming divisions of Sony and MS). The 360 and PS3 have remained neck and neck. And the Wii-U (which feels as much a current-gen console as a next-gen one based on the time I've had with mine)... who knows?
Really? They're still pumping out Final Fantasy games for the PS2? And it's an "expansion?"
Holy shit, when will they let that shit FUCKING DIE?! I mean, hasn't the series been widely acknowledged as "complete crap" ever since it moved off the Super Nintendo?
How many are they up to now, anyway? I know someone posted a list of Final Fantasy games and its expansions and it came out to something like nearly 50 different rehashes of the same goddamned game. That beats out things like Madden and Mario!
I do wonder what would have happened if Sony had held back the PS3 for 6-9 months, to work out some of the oddities in the hardware, let the launch price fall, get a stronger launch-lineup and maybe get proper back-compatibility into the hardware as a standard across the world.
Possibly, something entirely unrelated to the console market - HD-DVD may have become the de facto standard for high-def media. Upgrading their console platform was only one reason Sony launched the PS3 - the other was to get a player for their proprietary high-def format in the lounge room of as many consumers as possible. Remember, at launch, the PS3 was the most cost-effective BluRay player on the market, due to console subsidies.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
It didn't matter that it had underpowered hardware that was known for pain a pain in the arse to develop for
It mattered a whole hell of a lot. It threw developers back to the days of the (S)NES, where you had to develop your own development tools to actually create something that is usable. The video RAM limitation alone was a massive drawback to development, so much so, I can name two studios that eventually folded because development time targeting the PS2 was insurmountable with a small shop.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
"In a technical sense, if a game can run on the 360, it can be made to run on the PS3 and vice-versa."
It is funny on a site that claims to be a hangout for people with at least a minimum of technical knowledge. Or at least working visual systems...
There never has been another console that has so absolutely crushed its competition like the PS3 has done with the Xbox 360 this gen.
In the past there were either consoles that were too far apart in time for them to be considered technical competitors or consoles that were strong in some graphical areas but were beat in others like the Genesis/SNES days.
The PS3 is the first console ever to have such a graphical dominance over its competition that there isn't a single are the PS3 doesn't crush the Xbox 360 in:
* Resolution
* Poly counts
* Lighting
* Materials
* Animation
* Physics
* Particle/Effects
There isn't a single graphical area where the Xbox 360 has been able to put out games that match the PS3 in even a single graphical area this gen. And Microsoft has had six years and an virtually unlimited budget to do so.
Games like GT5 are running at 50 percent more resolution than the 360's Forza while pushing a huge amount more polys per frame and running a lighting model far beyond.
Games like Killzone 2 are running engines that aren't even possible to run on the 360 due to the gimped 10 megs EDRAM the 360 is saddled with.
Or games like Metal Gear Solid 4 that are so large they could never ever run on the 360's smaller than last gen 6.7gig DVD format.
Or games like Uncharted that have materials that make the 360's 'graphical showcase' Gears of War look like a PS2/Xbox era title:
http://kineticninja.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html
The Xbox 360 has been so badly beaten in graphics this gen that it is the only console in history to have to resort to trying to brag about minuscule differences in crappy mulitplatform titles because its own first party exclusives are so graphically unimpressive.
So, yeah, I'm sure shitty little Call of Doody looks slightly better on your 480i TV on your 360 than on your PS3.
But outside of delusional fanboy lalaland Microsoft has had 6 years to come up with a single game that could match Sony's PS3 exclusives this gen and failed to do so.
Best writer on games on Slashdot: RogueyWon
You are welcome on my lawn.
Hah, so very true. I remember how close I came to buying the HD-DVD addon for the 360, before remembering the old-adage that console peripherals never really take off. On that basis, it was clear that even if the 360 sold the PS3, the PS3's inclusion of blu-ray as standard was going to carry that format over the line.
And yes, my parents bought a PS3 to go with their new HD-TV, not because they wanted to play games on it, but because it was indeed the cheapest blu-ray player around.
As nice the game catalog for the PS2 was. I certainly don't miss the hardware problems one bit. I lost track of how many PS2s I got in to recalibrate the shitty laser because the plastic casing just couldn't take the heat generated by the console and deformed it's shape. Or how many PS2 network and HDD adapters I had to replace capacitors on because Sony used parts that were not rated for the type of punishment the console put it through. Or all the loose control and memory card slots that had to be re-soldered, which ultimately the problem goes away with a line of hot glue over the pins. It was a box loaded with problems.
I do really miss the great RPG and Action games of the PS2 era. Everything had nice vibrant colors that really fit the fantasy worlds that were defacto standard for those genres at the time. All of these newer games have such a drab color palette that it makes me feel depressed if I play them for too long.
...whatever we want to on it. There's Linux and homebrew stuff, that can run on this old hardware, but the newer ( just a couple of years:)) firmwares won't allow it without modchips.
I was always lucky on the PS2 hardware front, for the most part. Had a "fat" UK model for several years which got very heavy use, which was later joined by a "slim" US model. Neither had any internal hardware failures. What did get irritating, however, was memory card corruption. I remember losing a Final Fantasy X save with about 70 hours of play-time on it to that. Not amusing.
I actually had worse luck with the Gamecube, where I had two of them fail on me, despite the fact they got much more limited use. One of them, admittedly, wasn't 100% the console's fault. I'd taken it home when visiting the family for Christmas and a cousin's young child had been a bit too... enthusiastic... opening up that little flippy lid on the top, snapping it off (though those lids were absurdly fragile). On the other unit, the disc drive just suddenly refused to read anything.
This time around, I've had a Wii fail on me (dead out of the box) and a 360 RROD on me. The 360 died following a firmware update just a few days out of the 3 year extended warrenty, so I wasn't best pleased (though in fairness, I'd been meaning to trade up to a later model with a larger HDD).
TL;DR (just another thread about console cretinitis disease apparently destroying pc gaming lol)
Another Final Fantasy XI expansion? [..] It feels a bit like a relic from another world now; easy to forget it was probably the world's most successful MMO until World of Warcraft launched.
That's probably because it never even came close to that accomplishment.
I never played any of them, so I'm not really speaking from a position of authority. However, the MMORPG even *I* remember people going on about was Everquest. Looking back, I always got the impression that Everquest was the 800lb gorilla that dominated until the King Kong-sized WoW overshadowed even that.
Maybe as a non-game player I didn't notice FFXI because I assumed it was just a regular RPG like its predecessors, but I don't recall people going on about it anywhere near as much as "Evercrack".
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Everquest was "the game to beat" for a long time. Final Fantasy XI was the first game to beat it (in terms of subscriber numbers). In fairness, Everquest was already very old when FFXI launched.
Then WoW came along and succeeded on a different order of magnitude to anything that had come before (and, in terms of subscription MMOs, anything that's come since as well).
Getting over 500k subscribers and staying there for years seems to be incredibly difficult. Everquest managed it for a while, FFXI managed it, EVE Online seems to have managed it. Not many others have done the same.
PCSX2 is servicable for playing most titles, and even in most cases at better visual quality than the PS2 itself.
I heard that Square is making an expansion for Final Fantasy XI but I forgot the name. Thanks to Slashdot, I found the name. Pretty cool that Final Fantasy XI: Seekers of Adoulin will be available for the Sony PlayStation 2 in Japan. In the United States of America, Final Fantasy XI will run on Windows and the XBox 360, not the PS2.
I remember that the original FFXI game came out in 2003 or 2004. Wow, that is about 8 or 9 years ago.
I would argue that the 360 has more mind-share in the US--but at the same time, it's the least relevant console. Most games these days are multiplatform, and now that developers have had more time with the PS3, the PS3 ports are almost always superior. The 360 does have a few good exclusives, but those often wind up on the PC as well, which ends up getting the superior ports (Halo is a notable exception). Sony, meanwhile, has been amazingly open to a diverse range of niche titles that don't wind up anywhere else. I don't like Sony very much, but I have to give them credit for that--during the PS2 days, they were hardcore about not letting anything that seemed "old-tech" onto the platform. The PS3 also has free online. $60/year for the 360 may not be much, but that's the price of a new game, and it means that the platform is more accessible for casual multiplayers.
(Where the 360 clearly has the PS3 beat is in the system OS, even if the constant ads are annoying. This isn't too surprising, given Microsoft's origins.)
If you can't convince them, convict them.
...
The funny thing is that, despite its hardware being completely obsolete, I've often felt Sony sent it to the back burner (via the PS3 launch) too soon. Both the console and its games were still selling well when the PS3 launched, with the 360 having failed to take much wind out of its sales.../p>
That is funny thing to say. Because Sony was the only one selling games for the previous generation system when the new systems came out. Did MS still support the original Xbox? Fuck no. Yet Sony still had new games coming out for the PS2 long after the PS3 was released. In fact, for being a "back burner" they just finally stopped making PS2, did MS still make Xboxes 5 years ago? No? So why is the back burner so bad when they have a new product? At least they were keeping it warm, not forgetting it like MS Did.
I do remember Nintendo making some Gamecube games will after the Wii was released, like Zelda was made for both systems (i think, could be wrong). But that was a case of developing it at the end of the Gamecube cycle and that the Gamecube is very very very similiar to the Wii.
Be seeing you...
Also, other consoles already would have had a 1 year lead on the next-gen platform; which would have made it much harder for the PS3 to take a stand.
Granted the Dreamcast (I am not one of those fan boys who says it's more powerful then the PS2) was the first machine I learned about "hacking" on, which was basicly learning to make boot disks so I could boot up copies of games/homebrew. The PS2 was the first gaming console that gave me a harddrive to do it with.
Granted I didn't get my first PS2 till about 6 months before the PS3 came out. I was mostly a PC gamer at that point, but of course, had all the various consoles up till the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube came out. So I got this PS2 from a friend, with the 10gb harddrive in it. And I have the internet, which I embarked on my hacking quest. I got my hands on a Action Replay disk and a usb stick that came with it. This was enough to get the needed programs to run, but not enough to play backups, as I had to make a hook (used an old credit card, worked great) to unlock the DVD drive so i could swap in a backup to play.
Eventually I discovered the Harddrive loaders, and then, Free MCBoot came out and well, nothing has been easier then playing whatever I want on my PS2. Dragon Quest VIII is a RPG that is worth it, in my opinion. Can't get it anywhere else. In fact, I have over 150gb of PS2 RPG's I downloaded.
Sad note, my PS2 killed another harddrive, 3rd one so far, so I think it's controller is bad, now I have to find another one. Sucks.
I've taken other PS2 apart to fix them, i've built many a PS2 system for people to game on in the last 3 years.
Just one thing I never ever understood. Why didn't anyone use firewire connection to hook up a pc to a PS2?
Anyways, love my PS2, and as soon as I get a new network/harddrive controller, it's going back up on my computer desk, next to my Commodore 1902 monitor.
Going to have to say, the Logitech made the best wireless gamepad for the PS2, solid, vibrates, not too big, not too small. one of my favorite gamepads still.
Be seeing you...
You obviously were not around for the Atari 2600. The influence of the 2600 dwarfed the PS2. It defined a generation in a way that Sony could only dream their console could. For a time, the name Atari was literally synonymous with game console. Even the competitors like ColecoVision would frequently be referred to as a Coleco brand Atari.
The ps2's textures were detailed and sharp compared to gamecubes colorful graphics but with blurry textures. Look at metal gear solid 3, gran turismo 4, god of war 2 etc... which all have excellent looking graphics. When it came down to games it was the ps2 that won hands down. I think the disagreements with nvidia and the discontinuation of nvidia gpu for the xbox brought the console to an end.
Having done a bit of reading since my original post, it seems FFXI managed to stay in the 500k-750k range for years and years. It's below that point now, but then, it's extremely old now. While it may only have managed not much more than 1/20th of WoW's peak subscriber base, it seems to have done better than almost all of the other competition..
And ironically enough, FFXIV contributed to that drop, by drawing away players and dev resources. FFXI developed that sort of "end of game" atmosphere, as everyone expected it to be completely obsoleted by SE's new creation. At the time of FFXIV's release, quite a few friends in my linkshells (FFXI social or guild-type organizations) left to go play it. After a burst of initial enthusiasm, most found the new game disappointing and eventually quit -- but a portion of them never returned to FFXI afterwards.
In the meantime, many smaller FFXI linkshells had withered away due to the temporary drop in population. As members trickled back in (a few at a time), they came back to silent linkshell channels. They then left for greener pastures in the same gradual trickle, thus preventing their linkshells from ever re-gaining the critical mass of members needed for social interaction and in-game events.
On the other hand, the FFXIV launch disaster has caused SquareEnix to take a renewed interest in investing resources to maintain and develop content, and the FFXI population has stabilized (although at a new lower level). The upcoming expansion even adds two completely new classes (Geomancer and Rune Knight), building on the sophisticated job system that is one of FFXI's core strengths among MMOs.
You actually just posted a link to a fucking Xbox 360 game that was ported to PS3 as some sort of 'proof' that the 360 is able to put out PS3 level graphics?
Really???
I think I am finally seeing the sad and pathetic logic that allows people like you to lie to themselves in order to not have to face a reality they desperately don't want to deal with. In this case that the PS3, no surprise, destroyed the Xbox 360 in graphics this gen - just like every console engineer knew it would six years ago.
Ya don't get to pick and choose which game's graphics demonstrate the relative strength of two consoles. It is hilarious that you actually tried to do so.
The PS3 has Uncharted 1/2/3 - What does the Xbox 360 have of the same level?
NOTHING
No fucking surprise since the 360 is gimped by the smaller than last gen disc format that can't hold the 24 or more gigs of data for materials and geometry in the Uncharted games. Nor does the 360 have the same insane parallel floating point power in the PS3's Cell chip to run Uncharted's animations.
Instead the best the 360 can do is the 'amazing' Gears of War games that look like this:
http://kineticninja.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html
Laughably primitive lighting, jerky primitive animations, materials that look straight out of the PS2/Xbox era.
The PS3 has Killzone 2/3 - What does the 360 have that can compete?
NOTHING
Once again the massive data of materials and geometry can't fit even on 3 of the 360's gimped less than DVD sized discs. And the 360's gimped 10 megs of EDRAM can't fit the massive render buffers that advanced deffered shading engines like Killzone 2/3 run on the PS3. And this is why all the Xbox fanboys screamed that Sony was lying about Killzone 2's graphics before Sony shut them the fuck up at E3 with graphics that matched the 'impossible CGI level' graphics:
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3238/killzone2comparw1.jpg
Either you post these mystery 360 games that magically make the wimpy Xbox hardware do what not a single Xbox developer has been able to for the past seven years.
Until you can do that, sit down and shut the fuck up. Your crappy little underpowered 360 got the shit kicked out of it graphically this gen. No other console has been so humiliated that it has not a single exclusive title that can be held up that is of the same level as the exclusives on its competing console.
Dark Age of Camelot was the Everquest killer and the dominate mmo before WoW.
Dark Age of Camelot still to this day has the best pvp system out of any mmorpg
I don't know about you guys, but my PS2 is still hooked up and ready to go, and I have two shelves full of PS2 titles. What if the laser goes in my PS2, is all that software suddenly worthless? I know about PCSX2 but that is not a 100% solution, and I don't want to think about the legality of BIOS and disc images that you haven't dumped yourself. I think it's a shame that soon you cannot buy a brand-new PS2 anymore, just to protect your investment in game titles.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
There was no "EverQuest killer", the game is still going strong today despite the naysayers. At any time I log in and run around, there are still plenty of people around to play with, some new, some old.
You're delusional.
PS2 slimline's flaw is that its ribbon cable for the laser assembly can rise a bit and cause scratches in the disc when the laser moves and the cable contacts the disc. Aside from that--and make no mistake that is a huge design flaw even if it can be fixed--PS2 was and still is a great system.
Several PS2 ports came from PC games. It also had a very large library of shooter, action, platform and puzzle games. Dualshock controllers last for years before malfunction (although still not as durable as Sega Genesis controllers which last over a decade and still don't malfunction). Don't forget that the PS2 also supports DVD playback and can even decode DTS.
One of the main questions I have when I see PS3, Wii, WiiU, XBox 360: yes, okay, but where are the games that actually interest me?
Benchmarks from spec.org
IBM System p 570 (4.7GHz, 1 core) (1 thread)-result: 17.8{base}, 21.6{peak}
HP ProLient Bl660c (2.90GHz Xeon E5-4617, 24 cores)( 24 threads)-result: 49.6{base}, 52.9{peak}...score per core 49.6/24=2.066{base}, 2.2{peak}
Oracle SunFire X4470 M2(2.40GHz Xeon E7-4870, 40 cores)( 80 threads)-result: 33.6{base}, 36.6{peak}... score per core 33.6/40=0.48{base}, 0.915{peak}
Dell PowerEdge R900 (2.40 Xeon E7450, 24 cores)( 24 threads)- result: 227{base}, 243{peak}.. score per core 227/24=9.4{base}, 10.12{peak}
And IBM's p570 is two years old..
I pretty much agree with most of your post, despite being more of an Xbox 1 over PS2 gamer (my first consoles and coming from PC, I liked the more PC-centric stuff on the Xbox)
That being said, I now love my PS3, so many good games for it and more importantly so many good exclusive games for it, often unique ones to boot.
I'm curious if you'd agree (and suspect so) that the PS3 and 360 are about to also be retired too early. The replacements for both systems are heavily rumoured to come out next year before Xmas and I'm not sure they are needed yet. The law of diminishing returns has the PS3 and 360's best games still (in my opinion) looking really quite good (See: Uncharted 2/3, Journey, Halo 4 and so on) these are quality graphics on 6 year old systems. I personally don't think we need those new consoles for at least 24 months.
Since I wasn't a hardcore console player last gen (I got in mid way and was new to consoles in general) the PS2 doesn't hold as much memories for me - but the PS3 is definitely the best console I've ever owned. Very happy with it.
Oops System p 570 is POWER6, and POWER7 is more than twice as fast.
When I was in Japan I had a chance to turn on the old PS2 they had in the upstairs bedroom. My hosts were amused by my fascination with it and explained that video games are considered to be children's toys.
I have no idea what company you worked for, but the PS3 hardware design went through a radical change between its early stage incarnation and what shipped. You must have worked for a late-access company.
Originally, the PS3 was going to do most of it's graphics in a souped-up 12-bit fixed point PS2-like graphics pipeline (called the RS) and do all the geometry on the Cell processors. After they found out their fixed point design was untenable for modern fragment shading, they had a crash program to retro-fit floating point into the RS-core, but that program failed. Then they called Nvidia in a panic to cram in a souped up NV47 GPU core into the chip (called the RSX).***
The PS2 and PS3 have in no way an "almost identical" HW design. In fact the preview-dev-kits that Sony shipped prior to the HW being available were basically Power-PCs with NV47's in them. The NV47 GPU architecture is not at all like the PS2 GPU. The Power-PC was not like the Mips-R5900 core used in the PS2 either (not to mention the cell processor alti-vec on steriods hanging off the power-pc cores in the PS3.
Early PS3's had PS2 chips in them because it was too hard to emulate the PS2 on the Power-PC+RSX combo. As a cost-reduction move, later PS3's had huge patch libraries for popular games on the hard-drive to live-patch games to make this emulation work. Finally, Sony gave up and the latest PS3's don't run old PS2 games at all.
It's true at the end they sacrificed two SPUs (one for a security monitor and another to increase yield) and there were some clock tweaks, but that was waaaay late in the PS3 development program.
***Actually Sony wanted a custom version of the new Nvidia G80-core (w/ unfied shaders), but Nvidia wouldn't agree to modify that chip into a core in the short amount of time they had to execute the program, so Sony only got the previous generation graphics core (at least it was floating point pixel shaders).
I don't mention consoles destroying PC gaming anywhere in my post. In so far as I do mention PC gaming, it is to say that it was on the back foot during the PS2/Xbox/GC era (which it was) and that it is resurgent towards the end of the PS3/360/Wii era (which it is).
Judging by your post history, you seem to have trouble reading posts over 3 lines in length. There is specialist adult education out there that might help you with this. I'd urge you to consider it.
Do you believe in "patriotic" buying? I suspect a lot of people do, as evidenced by the PS3's advantage in Japan and the 360's in the US (while Europe remains a dead heat).
While I have no doubt that it matters to a significant percentage of Japanese gamers that the PS3 is made by a Japanese company...I don't believe for a second that any significant percentage of Americans give a damn that MS is an American company and got their Xbox because of that. Most likely IMO? Someone wanted to play some flavor of Halo because their buddies all played it...then, that was the console that they had, and there was no reason to get another one.
No, I think this time, they may even have moved too late.
The shadow in the backdrop of the console cycle is PC gaming. People talk about console gaming killing PC gaming. It could, in theory, happen, but it hasn't to date. The reverse could also happen. And while it hasn't happened yet, we've been close at a couple of points in the past and are quite close now.
The PC had its first gaming surge at the end of the NES/Mastersystem era. That's when we got the likes of the original Wing Commander and Ultima 7, which left the console games of the time in the dirt. The SNES/Genesis narrowed the gap.
At the end of the SNES/Genesis era, console gaming came closer than people today tend to remember to dying completely. It was quite some time before a credible successor (the Playstation) emerged... and this was at a time when PC gaming's technology was moving on in leaps and bounds and Win95 was finally (to a small extent) starting to make PC gaming a little bit easier to get into for the newcomer.
The PC never really got a look-in during the PS2/Xbox/GC generation, because that generation ran quite short. By the time the PC was opening out a really serious technical gap (where even off-the-shelf $600 PCs could leave consoles in the dust), the next generation was already launching.
This time around, the PC has, for the last 12 months, been the format where there interesting stuff is happening. None of the current consoles can really handle Frostbite 2. Even a fully maxed-out Unreal 3 experience can only be delivered on the PC. Developers are bored by and constrained on current console hardware. PC versions of cross-platform games leave their console kin in the dust. $600 PCs can massively outperform the consoles - and can output quite easily to the living room TV as well as to a monitor.
Console gaming is under assault from 2 directions; from the mobile OSes and from the PC. If we don't get the next generation (and the Wii-U is not next generation) fast, then the PC and tablets could kill console gaming.
Comparing a POWER CPU (instead of PowerPC) at much higher clockspeed vs an old Nehalem/Westmere based Xeon with 7 year old benchmark software.
Bravo. You win the award for greatest lack of reading comprehension.
Holding back the PS3 probably wouldn't have helped because it had two major design flaws that ultimately kept it from taking the same place of its sibling, I'm of course talking about the cell and the BD drive. The cell is notorious for being a serious PITA to get any kind of performance out of without being just incredible when it comes to programming, similar to the Itanium in that regard, and while IBM tried for a little while to get the cell in more devices (such as the cell based PCIe video conversion cards) it was simply too hard to program for and two expensive and it never took off. Nintendo and MSFT both stuck with the PPC which was well known and simpler to program for which meant more games and the cheaper price of the PPC also allowed them to get the MSRP down quicker.
Then came the Blu Ray...sigh. I can see what they were trying to do with it, but they should have known that the cost was just too damned high. they should have stuck with DVD and then went BD as an option down the line but the price of blue lasers kept the price of the PS3 noncompetitive for far too long and allowed their rivals to drop prices much quicker even as Sony bled money on the PS3. What is worse is frankly a LOT of the AV buffs simply bought PS3s for BD players and then never bothered with the gaming which made their numbers when it came to sell through even worse.
That said and before someone accuses me of being "for" somebody like MSFT and coming down on Sony? I think the PS4 is gonna be a pretty damned interesting design and I look forward to see how it is gonna change the landscape. After all for the first time in years you are gonna have a 4 way race, MSFT, Sony, Nintendo, and Valve, and 2 of the 4 at least are gonna be running X86, an AMD APU for the PS4 and if the rumors are correct an i3 and Nvidia card for Valve, so I'm looking forward to seeing how well the new X86 multicores work in this contest and if nothing else it should make games being ported to and from the PC easy peasy.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Uhhh...feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I always got the impression the reason why Sony kept Japan while the X360 took the USA was that the Japanese have...well lets be honest, some seriously fucking WEIRD tastes when it comes to games and western developers don't really cater to all the dating sims and soap opera plots that seem to go big over there, its just a different culture.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Debatable. It might be the most popular of the 3 consoles (although I don't think it is- the Wii outsold it), or the most profitable, but Xbox 360 hasn't dominated in the way that the PS2 did in it's day, or the SNES in it's. It doesn't have vast numbers of exclusive games, and the other consoles haven't tried to emulate it. If anything, both MS and Sony have expended much effort to try to emulate the Wii, making Nintendo this generation's "trend setter"- although it'd be extremely generous to say the Wii "dominated", when it clearly didn't. There's also iOS, which was a game changer on the portable and semi-portable side of things hitherto occupied by Nintendo and Sony handhelds. And PC gaming has also experienced a renaissance compared to just a few years ago.
This generation has been far more even handed than most. That might explain why it has been such a long generation- none of the competitors have felt a burning need to pull something new out of the bag.
The Wii squandered nothing. It got lucky being a fad toy using a new gimmick. The fad could not be sustained because the gimmick was simple and got old quickly (especially because it didn't work all that well). The hardware was half a generation behind the competition so it couldn't "graduate" from fad toy to standard console. Anyone who was a "core" gamer or potentially could transition to that category was forced to buy a PS3 or 360. Their lead was not "squandered" because that implies they ever had a chance to take advantage of it to begin with. To most of the people who bought it, the Wii was a hula hoop, not a gaming console. To the core gamers, it was another GameCube, something you bought to buy first party Nintendo titles, but otherwise gathered dust in the corner.
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