I'd mod you up if i had points. I think that we'll see the next Nintendo console before we see the next PS/XBOX.
History has shown that the winner always launches the next gen last. The Wii might very well survive both the PS3 and the 360.
On a side note, can anyone tell me what's in the pipeline for the Wii when it comes to great games to look forward to? I know there's going to be mario galaxy, smash bros, and probably another mario cart in the works, but other than that, I really don't know what there is to look forward to on this system.
Zack & Wiki, Battalion Wars 2, Resident Evil: Umbrelly Chronicles, Wii Fit, Monster Hunter 3, a few FF and DQ spin-offs, Black & White, Spore, Geometry Wars Galaxies,... Just off the top of my head. I'm not going to go through the whole list of stuff that interests me. THere are sites tracking that (for euro releases, check out http://www.n-europe.com/releases.php.
And yes, a Mario Kart is coming.
I own all three current-gen consoles. Right now, the Wii release list is the most exciting for my taste.
Newer PSP models have twice the RAM of older models. Games who want to make use of the additional RAM have to check for it. The N64 did a similar thing with memory expansion.
I will say that I doubt Nintendo will do this with the Wii, but I will also say that there have been a few cases where it worked. If Nintendo does it right, this might be a viable upgrade path for the Wii.
I don't know about you, but I'd call the PS2->PS3 transition graphically comparable to the PS1->PS2 transition. It's no 2D->3D transition, but not everything can be.
I think you should dig up your PS1 and look at how attrocious the games looked. There's a reason the PS1 had so many fighters like Tekken: It hardly had the power to push enough polygons for more than two characters and some small surroundings. The graphics were blocky, no anti-aliasing, and texture rendering was simply broken (look at the texture of stuff that leaves the screen in games like Coolboarders).
The PS2 made just about any kind of 3D game possible. The PS3 gave us HD and better physics.
There's really no question that the jump from the PS1 to the PS2 was quite a bit bigger than from the PS2 to the PS3.
Something to consider: You're sitting ~50cm away from your screen. You're sitting several meters away from your TV. TVs need lower resolution than consoles; you won't be able to see ultra-high resolutions on PCs.
What you've shown is that in each generation, the winning console lasts the longest. Usually, the losers are forced to make a move cutting their losses, eventually also forcing the previous generation's winner to launch their next-gen attempt.
Nintendo didn't launch the SNES until Sega's Genesis/Megadrive became a major force
Nintendo didn't launch the N64 until Sony's Playstation became a major force
Sony didn't launch the PS2 until Sega's Dreamcast started to gain ground
Sony didn't launch the PS3 until the Xbox 360 had sold almost 10 million systems
This generation, it looks like Nintendo is winnig. Even though they have the weakest console from a pure speed standpoint, I expect the Wii to last longer than the PS3, should sales not change considerably in the next year or two. Should Microsoft choose to remain in the console market, and should the 360 remain at around double the market share of the PS3, I see no reason for them to move ahead with the nxt gen.
Sony, on the other hand, is in a bad spot. They're losing money on the PS3, they're not gaining market share, and third-party devs aren't exactly confident in the PS3 anymore. Despite having the strongest hardware, they may be forced to cut their losses and start the next generation early. If the PS3 doesn't start to gain major ground against the 360, and if Sony finds that in two or three years they can create a successor that costs them substantially less to produce, and has obvious better graphics than the 360, they will do it.
The NES however, was NOTORIOUS for failing to read games. How often do you have to blow in your carts, or fight with the unit to get it to work?
Yeah, but you just take the game out and put it back in and it works. Still does on my NES. The problem didn't get worse with time. You can't just take the disc out and try again with a broken PS2.
Sure. There are also Dreamcast games still coming out, and from time to time, a new VCS 2600 game is produced. That doesn't mean these consoles still play a role. Right now, it's DS vs PSP, and Wii vs 360 vs PS3. Every sold PS2 is money in Sony's pocket, but it's a Pyrrhic victory for Sony: The PS2 sales they make right now won't help them gain ground against the 360 or the Wii. If Sony can't move their customers to their current-gen system, they will never catch up with the 360; third-party devs will abandon their current-gen platform; and they will never be able to recoup the investments made into the PS3.
In two years, today's PS2 sales won't help Sony anymore. What they need is PS3 sales.
GP wasn't saying that the PS2 doesn't outsell the PS3. He was (I think) saying that PS2 sales simply don't matter. In two years, there will be no new PS2 games, and the people who buy a PS2 now won't matter anymore. Only the people who buy a Wii, a 360 or a PS3 will matter.
So in a way, Sony is hurting itself by pushing the PS2. Everyone who goes out and buys a PS2 right now won't go out and buy a PS3. That's money in Sony's pocket now, but at the same time, it's a lost opportunity to gain market share. All those people buying PS2s now won't help Sony's success with the PS3, and that's where Sony needs help right now.
Yeah. The PS2 is no competition for the Wii. Neither at 130 bucks, nor at 99 bucks. While the PS2 has some "casual" games (Buzz, SingStar), it just doesn't compete with the Wii on that front. People who want a Wii aren't going to buy a PS2 just because it just got cheaper.
That doesn't meant that this won't increase PS2 sales, of course. It just won't increase them at the expense of the Wii.
Same here. Never had a PS2 (starving student), bought a PS3, mainly use it to play all the PS2 games I've missed. While I own a few PS3 games, the only PS3 games I play semi-regularly are skate and Warhawk.
I don't think cost and performance are what differentiates PC and console gaming. For me, I hardly ever play PC games if I can avoid it. The reason? After a long day of staring at the screen, I just want to go home, plunk down in my sofa, push the button on the remote, take the gamepad, and start playing. I don't want to install stuff. I don't want to worry about drivers. I don't want to check system requirements. I don't want to quit my mail application to free up RAM. I don't want to worry about incompatible copy protection fucking up my installation. I just want to turn the damn thing on and start playing.
If I play with friends, I just want to grab three more controllers and play the game split-screen. No worries about networking, about them bringing their own laptops, about any of that stuff.
Of course, some genres are more widely available on consoles, and some are more widely available on PCs, so the types of games you want to play influence your hardware choices. Still, I think the main difference is that console games are supposed to just work, and go from 0 to playtime in a few seconds.
What about motorstorm, Resistance fall of man, Dirt and Oblivion.
So you have two launch titles and two multiplatform games, one of which really should be played on a PC. You also mention Heavenly Sword, which was supposed to be the game to finally make the PS3 worth it, but at 6 hours of playtime, I just don't see it. GTA IV is probably better on the 360, and R&C looks gorgeous, but it's essentially the same damn game I've already played on the PS2.
I've bought a PS3 on launch, but I've ordered an Xbox 360 today* as my second console next to the Wii. The PS3 games just aren't coming. Maybe I can use the thing as a Bluray player and for the occasional game of Little Big Planet (if we ever see that) or something.
* I ordered a 360 despite the fact that I:
Immensely dislike Microsoft
Don't want to pay for online gaming
Fully expect the thing to explode within a week
It just can't be helped: If you want to play some of the games that don't make it to the Wii, the 360 is unfortunately the better choice than the PS3. Actually, I'd even say that the PS3 isn't really a viable option at all, at this time. Oh, and Sony, what's up with the PS3 controller? Do you really think you got that right on the first try? A decade without changes? I'm not 6 years old anymore, you know! How about a controller that isn't so small that I have to hold the thing with two fingers so I get hand cramps within half an hour of Warhawk and have to use the crappy Logitech chill stream instead, which has totally broken analog sticks and no "home" button?
That said, hating them because they don't deal with unions is utter crap. In fact, I think I've actually found a single thing I can respect them for.
Yeah, let's respect them for fucking with the workers if these asshats dare organize themselves! They have no rights! They should just produce crap for us and be happy that we even allow them to exist! Wait, what?
Even though I use both Macs and Windows, I have no clue where XP or Vista stand with Color Management. I only use Color Management on Macs.
There are clear Font Rendering differences, though. Check out this recent article by Joel Spolsky, in which he writes:
The nice thing about the Apple algorithm is that you can lay out a page of text for print, and on screen, you get a nice approximation of the finished product. This is especially significant when you consider how dark a block of text looks. (...) The advantage of Microsoft's method is that it works better for on-screen reading. Both rendering techniques have their advantages; Apple's is just better suited for designers who design for print.
...which existed only in the minds of a bunch of delusional idiots. ZFS in its current state was never a viable option as the main file system for Mac OS X in its current state.
By the way, you can get read-write versions of ZFS for Macs using Apple's developer program.
In recent years, Mac market share in universities and schools has been skyrocketing all over the classes, as far as I can tell. Unix + nice UI + Office + nicely designed hardware + ability to run Windows if needed seems to sell to students more than to most other people. When I started studying computer science in 00, there were maybe 5-10 Mac owners in 200 students. Even between 00 and 05, Mac market share has been rising steadily, Nowadays, where I used to study, it looks more like 50-50, maybe with a slight advantage for Macs.
As far as Adobe's market share is concerned, I think for their pro apps (like Photoshop or Illustrator; not including those where Apple competes with Adobe), it's about 50-50 between Windows and Macintosh. At least that was the last number I heard, about two years ago. Adobe even went back into the Mac market with some apps that compete with Apple, after leaving those markets a few years ago.
Anyway, all graphic designers and even a huge number of architects I know use Macs, I think mainly for ease of networking and general ease of use, good system-level support for color calibration, and font rendering that mimicks print instead of changing fonts for clearer on-screen display.
Why do you expect the/. crowd to be dumber than a bunch of, as you call them "Apple apologists"? Oh, or are you trying to say that this is something to worry about???
True. However, I would argue that not requiring Admin access for/Applications is a good thing. People should not get used to entering their password for simple application installs.
On every Mac, there's an application called "Automator." Open this app. As you can plainly see, everyone (even without any programming expertise) can use this application to create a script which deletes, say, your Documents folder. That person could then save the resulting script and name it something like "hot naked chicks, click me to open."
If you're not in the 5% of dumbest people on earth, you can do that.
And everyone realizes that you can do that. When people speak of viruses, they do not speak of applications the user has to download and launch. When Mac users say "there are no viruses on the Mac," they do not mean to say that you can't create a script which deletes your stuff and has a name that does not say "delete my stuff."
So yeah, Mac users - and certainly those modding on/. - know that Trojans are possible on a Mac. So, when you write the following:
What I have been witnessing for years is Mac users saying "Macs don't have Viruses!!!1!" and someone else saying "Viruses aren't the only malware, idiot" before getting modded into oblivion. I think you should link to some examples, as I've never seen anything like this. If you have no examples, I'd have to say you're trying to Artie MacStrawman us.
Slashdot Mirror
Did Nintendo write off over a billion dollars for broken Wiis?
I know a bunch of people with Wiis. Not one problem. Different story with 360s.
That may very well be, but he's probably still right about Wii Fit.
History has shown that the winner always launches the next gen last. The Wii might very well survive both the PS3 and the 360.
On a side note, can anyone tell me what's in the pipeline for the Wii when it comes to great games to look forward to? I know there's going to be mario galaxy, smash bros, and probably another mario cart in the works, but other than that, I really don't know what there is to look forward to on this system.Zack & Wiki, Battalion Wars 2, Resident Evil: Umbrelly Chronicles, Wii Fit, Monster Hunter 3, a few FF and DQ spin-offs, Black & White, Spore, Geometry Wars Galaxies, ... Just off the top of my head. I'm not going to go through the whole list of stuff that interests me. THere are sites tracking that (for euro releases, check out http://www.n-europe.com/releases.php.
And yes, a Mario Kart is coming.
I own all three current-gen consoles. Right now, the Wii release list is the most exciting for my taste.
Newer PSP models have twice the RAM of older models. Games who want to make use of the additional RAM have to check for it. The N64 did a similar thing with memory expansion.
I will say that I doubt Nintendo will do this with the Wii, but I will also say that there have been a few cases where it worked. If Nintendo does it right, this might be a viable upgrade path for the Wii.
If you mean to imply that the opposite of what you just wrote is what Iwata actually said, then yes, you're right.
I think you should dig up your PS1 and look at how attrocious the games looked. There's a reason the PS1 had so many fighters like Tekken: It hardly had the power to push enough polygons for more than two characters and some small surroundings. The graphics were blocky, no anti-aliasing, and texture rendering was simply broken (look at the texture of stuff that leaves the screen in games like Coolboarders).
The PS2 made just about any kind of 3D game possible. The PS3 gave us HD and better physics.
There's really no question that the jump from the PS1 to the PS2 was quite a bit bigger than from the PS2 to the PS3.
Something to consider: You're sitting ~50cm away from your screen. You're sitting several meters away from your TV. TVs need lower resolution than consoles; you won't be able to see ultra-high resolutions on PCs.
This generation, it looks like Nintendo is winnig. Even though they have the weakest console from a pure speed standpoint, I expect the Wii to last longer than the PS3, should sales not change considerably in the next year or two. Should Microsoft choose to remain in the console market, and should the 360 remain at around double the market share of the PS3, I see no reason for them to move ahead with the nxt gen.
Sony, on the other hand, is in a bad spot. They're losing money on the PS3, they're not gaining market share, and third-party devs aren't exactly confident in the PS3 anymore. Despite having the strongest hardware, they may be forced to cut their losses and start the next generation early. If the PS3 doesn't start to gain major ground against the 360, and if Sony finds that in two or three years they can create a successor that costs them substantially less to produce, and has obvious better graphics than the 360, they will do it.
Yeah, because if we don't discuss it, it doesn't exist! Yay, problem solved.
Okay, so which part of what GP says is not true? And if you can't find a part that isn't, then why should telling the truth be ironic or trolling?
Yeah, but you just take the game out and put it back in and it works. Still does on my NES. The problem didn't get worse with time. You can't just take the disc out and try again with a broken PS2.
Sure. There are also Dreamcast games still coming out, and from time to time, a new VCS 2600 game is produced. That doesn't mean these consoles still play a role. Right now, it's DS vs PSP, and Wii vs 360 vs PS3. Every sold PS2 is money in Sony's pocket, but it's a Pyrrhic victory for Sony: The PS2 sales they make right now won't help them gain ground against the 360 or the Wii. If Sony can't move their customers to their current-gen system, they will never catch up with the 360; third-party devs will abandon their current-gen platform; and they will never be able to recoup the investments made into the PS3.
In two years, today's PS2 sales won't help Sony anymore. What they need is PS3 sales.
GP wasn't saying that the PS2 doesn't outsell the PS3. He was (I think) saying that PS2 sales simply don't matter. In two years, there will be no new PS2 games, and the people who buy a PS2 now won't matter anymore. Only the people who buy a Wii, a 360 or a PS3 will matter.
So in a way, Sony is hurting itself by pushing the PS2. Everyone who goes out and buys a PS2 right now won't go out and buy a PS3. That's money in Sony's pocket now, but at the same time, it's a lost opportunity to gain market share. All those people buying PS2s now won't help Sony's success with the PS3, and that's where Sony needs help right now.
Yeah. The PS2 is no competition for the Wii. Neither at 130 bucks, nor at 99 bucks. While the PS2 has some "casual" games (Buzz, SingStar), it just doesn't compete with the Wii on that front. People who want a Wii aren't going to buy a PS2 just because it just got cheaper.
That doesn't meant that this won't increase PS2 sales, of course. It just won't increase them at the expense of the Wii.
Same here. Never had a PS2 (starving student), bought a PS3, mainly use it to play all the PS2 games I've missed. While I own a few PS3 games, the only PS3 games I play semi-regularly are skate and Warhawk.
I don't think cost and performance are what differentiates PC and console gaming. For me, I hardly ever play PC games if I can avoid it. The reason? After a long day of staring at the screen, I just want to go home, plunk down in my sofa, push the button on the remote, take the gamepad, and start playing. I don't want to install stuff. I don't want to worry about drivers. I don't want to check system requirements. I don't want to quit my mail application to free up RAM. I don't want to worry about incompatible copy protection fucking up my installation. I just want to turn the damn thing on and start playing.
If I play with friends, I just want to grab three more controllers and play the game split-screen. No worries about networking, about them bringing their own laptops, about any of that stuff.
Of course, some genres are more widely available on consoles, and some are more widely available on PCs, so the types of games you want to play influence your hardware choices. Still, I think the main difference is that console games are supposed to just work, and go from 0 to playtime in a few seconds.
So you have two launch titles and two multiplatform games, one of which really should be played on a PC. You also mention Heavenly Sword, which was supposed to be the game to finally make the PS3 worth it, but at 6 hours of playtime, I just don't see it. GTA IV is probably better on the 360, and R&C looks gorgeous, but it's essentially the same damn game I've already played on the PS2.
I've bought a PS3 on launch, but I've ordered an Xbox 360 today* as my second console next to the Wii. The PS3 games just aren't coming. Maybe I can use the thing as a Bluray player and for the occasional game of Little Big Planet (if we ever see that) or something.
* I ordered a 360 despite the fact that I:
- Immensely dislike Microsoft
- Don't want to pay for online gaming
- Fully expect the thing to explode within a week
It just can't be helped: If you want to play some of the games that don't make it to the Wii, the 360 is unfortunately the better choice than the PS3. Actually, I'd even say that the PS3 isn't really a viable option at all, at this time. Oh, and Sony, what's up with the PS3 controller? Do you really think you got that right on the first try? A decade without changes? I'm not 6 years old anymore, you know! How about a controller that isn't so small that I have to hold the thing with two fingers so I get hand cramps within half an hour of Warhawk and have to use the crappy Logitech chill stream instead, which has totally broken analog sticks and no "home" button?Yeah, let's respect them for fucking with the workers if these asshats dare organize themselves! They have no rights! They should just produce crap for us and be happy that we even allow them to exist! Wait, what?
There are clear Font Rendering differences, though. Check out this recent article by Joel Spolsky, in which he writes: The nice thing about the Apple algorithm is that you can lay out a page of text for print, and on screen, you get a nice approximation of the finished product. This is especially significant when you consider how dark a block of text looks. (...) The advantage of Microsoft's method is that it works better for on-screen reading. Both rendering techniques have their advantages; Apple's is just better suited for designers who design for print.
...which existed only in the minds of a bunch of delusional idiots. ZFS in its current state was never a viable option as the main file system for Mac OS X in its current state.
By the way, you can get read-write versions of ZFS for Macs using Apple's developer program.
In recent years, Mac market share in universities and schools has been skyrocketing all over the classes, as far as I can tell. Unix + nice UI + Office + nicely designed hardware + ability to run Windows if needed seems to sell to students more than to most other people. When I started studying computer science in 00, there were maybe 5-10 Mac owners in 200 students. Even between 00 and 05, Mac market share has been rising steadily, Nowadays, where I used to study, it looks more like 50-50, maybe with a slight advantage for Macs.
As far as Adobe's market share is concerned, I think for their pro apps (like Photoshop or Illustrator; not including those where Apple competes with Adobe), it's about 50-50 between Windows and Macintosh. At least that was the last number I heard, about two years ago. Adobe even went back into the Mac market with some apps that compete with Apple, after leaving those markets a few years ago.
Anyway, all graphic designers and even a huge number of architects I know use Macs, I think mainly for ease of networking and general ease of use, good system-level support for color calibration, and font rendering that mimicks print instead of changing fonts for clearer on-screen display.
Why do you expect the /. crowd to be dumber than a bunch of, as you call them "Apple apologists"? Oh, or are you trying to say that this is something to worry about???
That's interesting, because that's exactly how Steve is selling his warez.
That's interesting, because on Apple's very own site, it says "no computer connected to the Internet will ever be 100% immune from attack."
http://www.apple.com/getamac/viruses.html
So who is these Steve you're talking about, and how is he relevant to Apple?
True. However, I would argue that not requiring Admin access for /Applications is a good thing. People should not get used to entering their password for simple application installs.
If you're not in the 5% of dumbest people on earth, you can do that.
And everyone realizes that you can do that. When people speak of viruses, they do not speak of applications the user has to download and launch. When Mac users say "there are no viruses on the Mac," they do not mean to say that you can't create a script which deletes your stuff and has a name that does not say "delete my stuff."
So yeah, Mac users - and certainly those modding on