Ok, so we know Nintendo produces some fun 1st-party games. And thats a great thing. If you love Nintendo's games then you know what you want, definitely a Wii.
The Wii will not be particularly powerful hardware-wise. Some fanboys say, its not next-gen or whatever buzzword you like. Nintendo fans say, that doesn't matter, because art direction trumps graphical muscle, gameplay and plot trump flashy graphics and nice physics. Its a fair argument.
The thing I wonder about is, this is not exclusive to Nintendo. Nothing about the Wii seems 'exclusive to Nintendo' save the 1st-party IP that no one else can produce. In other words, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Whatever.
Everything else about the Wii could potentially end up somewhere else. The controller has been knocked off for Xbox360/PS3/PC already, and is arguable superior. And 'good game design', while happily common with Nintendo's consoles, is hardly unique to them; there are innovative titles for all consoles.
In the end, while it seemed shrewd at first, I increasingly wonder if the cheap route was such a good idea after all. The Wii will look pretty nice at release, but even after 2 years, when they really start to stretch the legs on the X360 and PS3, I'm not so sure. Particularly if that 3rd party Wii Remote is bundled with a hit cross-platform game (ala Guitar Hero).
The real question is, of course, are any games going to actually make use of the eight cores? Video games aren't really known for being very parallel-friendly - you might make an excuse for five threads (logic, graphics, sound, controller I/O, and disk I/O), but generally they're fairly serial processes. While updating the game logic, you don't want to draw a frame using half-updated information.
Well to be fair, 8 processing elements are typically not available to video game developers, so you have a bit of chicken and egg problem happening there. I'm fairly sure X360 games are 'known' for using all 3 cores. But there are lots and lots of scenarios where you would want to run instructions in parallel in games, particularly for particles and enemy AI and whatnot. There is a reason both MS and Sony picked this multicore approach.
Ultimately, you have to wonder if Sony's decision to go with the Cell and use Blu-Ray was really that intelligent - most of the cost and production problems can be traced to them, and they provide very little real benefit to the end-user.
I don't really wonder about that particular point, it is pretty much beyond doubt - can't believe I even have to type this - that a huge parallel processing floating point monster of a CPU and a 25-50gig optical media storage system will, yes, benefit games. Only the most diehard oldskool console fans will tell you that graphical and sound capabilities are irrelevant. Now, whether these decisions benefit Sony's bottom line (unforseen cost and production shortages), is a separate question.
It says nothing about why the terminals were malfunctioning, which had everything to do with touch screen calibration (and the need to recalibrate from time to time) and nothing to do with some right-wing conspiracy. In fact, the article implies that it was one machine in particular, not all of them.
I'm not so sure. While I have not seen the interface in question, every example I've seen of electronic voting machines always employs HUGE buttons on the screen, to minimize this issue. Even if the registration point is off, as long as the button is, say, twice as high as your finger thickness, I can't see an issue.
Way to spin it to work the/. hordes into a raging frenzy.
Maybe - but its just too important to ignore. Any weirdness around voting machines in this US midterm should be heavily scrutinized.
Remember how the original PlayStation was praised for its laser-focus on games and not education or movies (um, hello, CD-i)? Well, they seem to have forgotten that in the last 10 years. The PlayStation brand still has hardcore fans who will clear out the initial shipment in minutes, but I think Sony has pushed a lot of fence-sitters into the 360 and Wii camps.
Agree completely on fence-sitters. However I think one detail you neglected to mention is, during the '10 years' where they supposedly forgot their focus on games, was the PS2, the most successful console of all time (save perhaps the GameBoy). And a large part of that was the DVD playing features.
Not so sure Bluray will turn out to be the white elephant everyone on slashdot says it is. The developers sure seem happy about it. I've seen what they were able to do with high-res textures for the PS3 version of Oblivion and it is remarkable. But the cost is significant, I agree. I suppose we shall see if that market exists now - it sure didn't when NeoGeo tried it.
If you are a hardcore liberal, then you probably are more likely to believe Osama Bin Laden's propaganda than anything Donald Rumseld says, and if you are of the neo-con flavor, then anything Donald Rumsfeld or George Bush or any of the generals say is gospel to you.
I find it very interesting that you put Rumsfeld and Bush on one side of the equation (for conservatives) and Osama bin Laden on the other, with the liberals. Do you have any idea how fucked up that sounds?
It doesn't matter if a 3rd party releases a Wii-mote type device for PS3 or 360. Developers won't use it unless it ships with either the system, or bundled with their game. I doubt they could be made cheaply enough to be bundled with games.
...Which they have now used to position themselves against Sony in a way nobody thought they would be able to. They have sold over 10 million 360s as of today. How many PS3s has Sony sold? Zero.
Where the fuck do you get 10 million X360s sold as of today? That is untrue. They've just announced 6, and are aiming for 10 by xmas (which will take a miracle). Check yer own figures before you cast stones.
People simply aren't very excited for the PS3 where I live. And I happen to think that it's indicative of a greater trend.
Indeed. Practically everyone I know really likes Macs, so I fully expect them to take over the computer market globally. Maybe tomorrow.
However, it's still amazing to note how far Sony has fallen, and much Nintendo's and MS's stock has risen over the course of only a year.
Its really Nintendo that has been the largest dynamic in this go-round of console launches. (Don't mind me, I'm just going to type aloud (?) here for a bit.)
We've been speculating for years and now we can see the shape of games to come. I find it quite fascinating to see how strategies have coalesced amongst the big 3 respectively. Previous trend was to go bigger, more complex, more density etc. Continue along the same arc if you will.
Sony took that seriously and set out to do something that seemed roughly 40X the last generation, spooky weirdo japanese CELL powered hardware running on zen koans and demon spirits, must be programmed in runes, does all kinds of other tricks like molesting your photo collection and music and whatnot. A scifi media computer in other words. Way ambitious, probably too ambitious. They are not kidding when they say a 10-year window for this thing. PS2 is coming up on that. Kutaragi announces that it will cost 10 orphan tears and a shard of narwhale horn. And then their manufacturing problems manifested and you all know the rest. So - high high end, with all the accompanying risks. Announces online strategy very late and not as solid as Live but I'm pleasantly surprised by what is out there now, it actually looks pretty good and we know it will be free. Browser looks alright. (And I must say, as an interface designer, the PS3 menu system is hot. Really, really stunningly beautiful.)
MS launches first by a long shot and does the very safest thing, not 40X but more like 10-12X (being extremely vague here, don't crucify me) and the famously solid online component. Less cost than PS3, less powerful, more understandable, more predictable. No HD optical. But then no harddrive. Jesus I really think they went too far with that, not making it standard. Will haunt them. Totally, solidly in the middle. Online is the gold standard amongst many and if you love that style of play this is the place to be. (Does it have a browser though? I actually don't know.)
Nintendo does this daring swoop downstream if you will, basically (very basically, again don't hurt me, *makes sign of cross*) minituarizing and upclocking a GameCube and focusing strongly on a completely new input mechanism. Way cheap, no HD anything, looks nifty though and does have slotloading drive. Controller is extremely intriguing, pretty much the whole strategy is on leveraging this and cost. Online presence consists of web browser, download service for old games, etc.
(I gotta wonder about 3rd party wiimote knockoffs appearing, that could hurt them in a big way - I don't have the link out there but someone announced a very similar controller for plain old USB - PS3, PC, X360).
Price will only play a partial role in people's decisions to go one way or the other (or multiple), platform loyalty being a big one for the regular gamers.
Anyways, I can't wait to see how it plays out. Not really looking for a winner, they're all gonna make gobs of cash (profit is a different thing) but I see a lot in the guy's article to agree with.
A handheld gaming console is a gaming console is a console.
Ok, fair enough.
And considering the amount of PS2's that died after warranty, making people buy a new one, I don't trust Sony's number. Sure they sold a whole lot of millions of PS2, but not all of them are still in use/still usable.
Its not a matter of 'trusting Sony's number'; the # of retail units sold comes from - surprise! - retailers.
Anyways, your point doesn't stand at all.
Nintendo
Total DS units sold: 26 million
Total Gamecubes sold: 21 million
Sony
Total PSP units sold: 22 million
Total PS2 units sold: 111 million
So you see, even if half of the PS2s sold were defective and disintegrated completely, Sony still clobbered Nintendo in 'console units sold' by your definition.
This means fuck-all to the enjoyment of the games of course, unless you like to throw around erroneous stats to reinforce your sad little tribal identity issues.
And they would be dead wrong, GBA SP was the best selling console for at least 4 years in a row, only to be overthrown by the DS. If we're talking units sold, Nintendo kicks the shit out of Sony.
If we're talking total handheld units sold, that is true. Consoles, its not even remotely close. There's about 10x as many PS2s in the world as there are GameCubes.
So basically what they're saying is if it wasn't for them screwing up horribly and for intentionally making their products cost way more to manufacture than they could possibly sell for [blahblahblah snipped]
No, what he's saying is that Sony's game sector is weak at the moment. Look at the context. They would have been on track but the battery recall cost them over 400 million dollars, and they know that SCE is precarious just before a console launch because of development costs and the fact that the PS2 is ancient (and competing with newer hardware).
Suffice to say, even the slickest market campaign can't account alone for iPod's success; just look at the PS3 or Zune:
Huh? Do you really think that, in 18 months, we will not be talking about the PS3? The Zune is practically stillborn but the PS3 has a nearly guaranteed gigantic launch. Besides, you referenced 'slick marketing campaigns', of which I've seen just billboards for the PS3 and fuck-all for Zune. I agree that the iPod is not just about marketing but you picked some strange illustrations.
It is funny how people who supposedly don't care about something, really need you to believe that they don't care. All the people who really don't care moved on and read a different article.
Even funnier when they (i.e. you) reply to tell me I shouldn't have replied. What does that make you?
Besides, you missed my larger point completely. Its pointless to get caught up in financial matters with the game companies as it adds to the fanboy signal-to-noise ratio. It is all about the games, after all. Your precious financial stats can be had from any newspaper.
Less than a month before launch, I've not seen a TV ad or recall seeing other adds. Or maybe I just don't buy and read game mags. much. I only get my one from EBgames.
Guess it depends on where you are. In downtown Toronto, there are several large billboards for the X360 and the PS3 (the weird ones with the consoles in profile arranged in a "3"). Haven't seen any Nintendo ads now that you mention it though.
I half expect to start seeing 360 faceplates that say "Sony Sucks" and DS stickers that show Calvin pissing on a PSP. Gamers seem to be so caught up in the rhetoric these days that it's getting harder and harder to find sites where people are actually discussing... what are those things called.... oh yeah, games.
No kidding. Its rampant. Tribal identity and all that, I guess. I had a PS2, and I spent many a happy hour in front of that thing, but when Nintendo would release a nice GameCube game my first thought was certainly not 'ah fuck them', it was 'cool, looks interesting, good for them, maybe I'll rent one'. I really don't understand the animosity but then again I don't understand (as in, can't relate to) the car brand rivalry either. I guess it'll always be around.
And here we have a textbook example of console fanboy groupthink. I do not mean to pick on you specifically crazyjeremy, but your post has every element in it.
Let me pull a chunk from TFA:
The company's group net profit for the quarter was ¥1.7 billion ($14.3m), down from ¥28.5 billion ($240.2m) at the same time last year. The company lost ¥51 billion ($429.9m) alone on the recall of 9.6 million batteries. The recall prevented the company from enjoying any benefit from a 8 percent rise in sales to ¥1.85 trillion ($15.59bn).
So from this report, we can see that these bad batteries that Sony made - huge misstep - cost them $429 million. Last year, the profit for the quarter was $240 million. They would have seen an 8% increase in sales. Before the PS3 launched.
Now - you say 'it doesn't matter what they could have done'. Do we know this? Its not bad electrolyte from the supplier or something? Sony is ultimately responsible for the product of course, but is that fair to say this was entirely their fault? (I'm asking.)
The link is that they are both a gaming system.
Well, okay. In that case, Nintendo is getting its ass handed to it by Sony in the selling of flatscreen televisions. Nintendo hasn't even put one out yet. Awful. Specious logic is fun!
Sony's sells for $500 - $600 and Nintendo sells for $250.
I don't think either are for sale, and Nintendo's unit will be $300, but yes.
I think it would be better to buy a $250 unit from a profitable company than a $500 unit from a failing one.
Failing? No doubt they have issues, but do you have any idea what it would take to actually sink Sony? Microsoft sells its console at a nearly continual loss, do you think they are about to tank?
Sony's recent business history proves they are making some bad decisions from the top down ( *cough* rootkits in music cd's *cough* )
*cough*SonyBMG is not Sony*cough*. I certainly don't buy from that outfit anymore.
and it's doubtful the PS3 will be the cash cow they are banking on to pull them out of the mess.
Sez you. Let's meet back here in six months and see what's happening, deal?
Seriously. From a 'gamer' (ugh) perspective, I could give a flying fuck about how well these entities are doing financially. Call me when one of them is about to fold.
(I'm actually surprised Sony hasn't received the Apple treatment - "Beleaguered Sony")
I care that they both have consoles launching and I am interested in trying both. I am interested in the launch lineup. I'm interested in specs. Controllers. Formats. But quarterly reports, do we really care that much?
Anyways, I hope Sony learns from their mistakes and improves. I will vote with my dollars accordingly until they stop behaving badly. I don't want them to "die", as some posters have mentioned; besides being exceedingly unlikely, Sony has made great things in the past. It would be nice to see a return to form, specifically for SCE and Sony Electronics. The media arms I have no use for.
Thank you very much for the PSP info. The streaming movies thing is incredibly cool. (That takes a LOT of horsepower, if its doing realtime compression + streaming to H.264 and serving it over WiFi.)
If we get YDL for PS3, does this not mean we can write homebrew software for it? It just seems to change the equation a bit. A $600 game console is expensive, but a $600 multicore Linux PC that can do HD, Bluray and a bunch of other interesting tricks is a lot more interesting...
Slashdot Mirror
Seconded. Been pining for proper PNG/alpha support in IE for years. This update will make graphic designers very happy.
Ok, so we know Nintendo produces some fun 1st-party games. And thats a great thing. If you love Nintendo's games then you know what you want, definitely a Wii.
The Wii will not be particularly powerful hardware-wise. Some fanboys say, its not next-gen or whatever buzzword you like. Nintendo fans say, that doesn't matter, because art direction trumps graphical muscle, gameplay and plot trump flashy graphics and nice physics. Its a fair argument.
The thing I wonder about is, this is not exclusive to Nintendo. Nothing about the Wii seems 'exclusive to Nintendo' save the 1st-party IP that no one else can produce. In other words, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Whatever.
Everything else about the Wii could potentially end up somewhere else. The controller has been knocked off for Xbox360/PS3/PC already, and is arguable superior. And 'good game design', while happily common with Nintendo's consoles, is hardly unique to them; there are innovative titles for all consoles.
In the end, while it seemed shrewd at first, I increasingly wonder if the cheap route was such a good idea after all. The Wii will look pretty nice at release, but even after 2 years, when they really start to stretch the legs on the X360 and PS3, I'm not so sure. Particularly if that 3rd party Wii Remote is bundled with a hit cross-platform game (ala Guitar Hero).
Well to be fair, 8 processing elements are typically not available to video game developers, so you have a bit of chicken and egg problem happening there. I'm fairly sure X360 games are 'known' for using all 3 cores. But there are lots and lots of scenarios where you would want to run instructions in parallel in games, particularly for particles and enemy AI and whatnot. There is a reason both MS and Sony picked this multicore approach.
I don't really wonder about that particular point, it is pretty much beyond doubt - can't believe I even have to type this - that a huge parallel processing floating point monster of a CPU and a 25-50gig optical media storage system will, yes, benefit games. Only the most diehard oldskool console fans will tell you that graphical and sound capabilities are irrelevant. Now, whether these decisions benefit Sony's bottom line (unforseen cost and production shortages), is a separate question.
I'm not so sure. While I have not seen the interface in question, every example I've seen of electronic voting machines always employs HUGE buttons on the screen, to minimize this issue. Even if the registration point is off, as long as the button is, say, twice as high as your finger thickness, I can't see an issue.
Maybe - but its just too important to ignore. Any weirdness around voting machines in this US midterm should be heavily scrutinized.
Agree completely on fence-sitters. However I think one detail you neglected to mention is, during the '10 years' where they supposedly forgot their focus on games, was the PS2, the most successful console of all time (save perhaps the GameBoy). And a large part of that was the DVD playing features.
Not so sure Bluray will turn out to be the white elephant everyone on slashdot says it is. The developers sure seem happy about it. I've seen what they were able to do with high-res textures for the PS3 version of Oblivion and it is remarkable. But the cost is significant, I agree. I suppose we shall see if that market exists now - it sure didn't when NeoGeo tried it.
Musharraf is a warlord. He is an ally the way Saddam was an ally in the 70s. Saddam wasn't 'insane' either.
I find it very interesting that you put Rumsfeld and Bush on one side of the equation (for conservatives) and Osama bin Laden on the other, with the liberals. Do you have any idea how fucked up that sounds?
* expandable Nerf(TM) living room accessory sold separately
Well that's not fair - the GBA launched years before the PSP, Sony had no portable at that time :)
But your larger point is well-taken. Price won't kill Sony, but they will take a well-deserved pounding for it.
Yeah, let's.
Where the fuck do you get 10 million X360s sold as of today? That is untrue. They've just announced 6, and are aiming for 10 by xmas (which will take a miracle). Check yer own figures before you cast stones.
Indeed. Practically everyone I know really likes Macs, so I fully expect them to take over the computer market globally. Maybe tomorrow.
Its really Nintendo that has been the largest dynamic in this go-round of console launches. (Don't mind me, I'm just going to type aloud (?) here for a bit.)
We've been speculating for years and now we can see the shape of games to come. I find it quite fascinating to see how strategies have coalesced amongst the big 3 respectively. Previous trend was to go bigger, more complex, more density etc. Continue along the same arc if you will.
Sony took that seriously and set out to do something that seemed roughly 40X the last generation, spooky weirdo japanese CELL powered hardware running on zen koans and demon spirits, must be programmed in runes, does all kinds of other tricks like molesting your photo collection and music and whatnot. A scifi media computer in other words. Way ambitious, probably too ambitious. They are not kidding when they say a 10-year window for this thing. PS2 is coming up on that. Kutaragi announces that it will cost 10 orphan tears and a shard of narwhale horn. And then their manufacturing problems manifested and you all know the rest. So - high high end, with all the accompanying risks. Announces online strategy very late and not as solid as Live but I'm pleasantly surprised by what is out there now, it actually looks pretty good and we know it will be free. Browser looks alright. (And I must say, as an interface designer, the PS3 menu system is hot. Really, really stunningly beautiful.)
MS launches first by a long shot and does the very safest thing, not 40X but more like 10-12X (being extremely vague here, don't crucify me) and the famously solid online component. Less cost than PS3, less powerful, more understandable, more predictable. No HD optical. But then no harddrive. Jesus I really think they went too far with that, not making it standard. Will haunt them. Totally, solidly in the middle. Online is the gold standard amongst many and if you love that style of play this is the place to be. (Does it have a browser though? I actually don't know.)
Nintendo does this daring swoop downstream if you will, basically (very basically, again don't hurt me, *makes sign of cross*) minituarizing and upclocking a GameCube and focusing strongly on a completely new input mechanism. Way cheap, no HD anything, looks nifty though and does have slotloading drive. Controller is extremely intriguing, pretty much the whole strategy is on leveraging this and cost. Online presence consists of web browser, download service for old games, etc.
(I gotta wonder about 3rd party wiimote knockoffs appearing, that could hurt them in a big way - I don't have the link out there but someone announced a very similar controller for plain old USB - PS3, PC, X360).
Price will only play a partial role in people's decisions to go one way or the other (or multiple), platform loyalty being a big one for the regular gamers.
Anyways, I can't wait to see how it plays out. Not really looking for a winner, they're all gonna make gobs of cash (profit is a different thing) but I see a lot in the guy's article to agree with.
Ok, fair enough.
Its not a matter of 'trusting Sony's number'; the # of retail units sold comes from - surprise! - retailers.
Anyways, your point doesn't stand at all.
Nintendo
Total DS units sold: 26 million
Total Gamecubes sold: 21 million
Sony
Total PSP units sold: 22 million
Total PS2 units sold: 111 million
So you see, even if half of the PS2s sold were defective and disintegrated completely, Sony still clobbered Nintendo in 'console units sold' by your definition.
This means fuck-all to the enjoyment of the games of course, unless you like to throw around erroneous stats to reinforce your sad little tribal identity issues.
If we're talking total handheld units sold, that is true. Consoles, its not even remotely close. There's about 10x as many PS2s in the world as there are GameCubes.
No, what he's saying is that Sony's game sector is weak at the moment. Look at the context. They would have been on track but the battery recall cost them over 400 million dollars, and they know that SCE is precarious just before a console launch because of development costs and the fact that the PS2 is ancient (and competing with newer hardware).
Huh? Do you really think that, in 18 months, we will not be talking about the PS3? The Zune is practically stillborn but the PS3 has a nearly guaranteed gigantic launch. Besides, you referenced 'slick marketing campaigns', of which I've seen just billboards for the PS3 and fuck-all for Zune. I agree that the iPod is not just about marketing but you picked some strange illustrations.
Even funnier when they (i.e. you) reply to tell me I shouldn't have replied. What does that make you?
Besides, you missed my larger point completely. Its pointless to get caught up in financial matters with the game companies as it adds to the fanboy signal-to-noise ratio. It is all about the games, after all. Your precious financial stats can be had from any newspaper.
Guess it depends on where you are. In downtown Toronto, there are several large billboards for the X360 and the PS3 (the weird ones with the consoles in profile arranged in a "3"). Haven't seen any Nintendo ads now that you mention it though.
No kidding. Its rampant. Tribal identity and all that, I guess. I had a PS2, and I spent many a happy hour in front of that thing, but when Nintendo would release a nice GameCube game my first thought was certainly not 'ah fuck them', it was 'cool, looks interesting, good for them, maybe I'll rent one'. I really don't understand the animosity but then again I don't understand (as in, can't relate to) the car brand rivalry either. I guess it'll always be around.
And here we have a textbook example of console fanboy groupthink. I do not mean to pick on you specifically crazyjeremy, but your post has every element in it.
Let me pull a chunk from TFA:
The company's group net profit for the quarter was ¥1.7 billion ($14.3m), down from ¥28.5 billion ($240.2m) at the same time last year. The company lost ¥51 billion ($429.9m) alone on the recall of 9.6 million batteries. The recall prevented the company from enjoying any benefit from a 8 percent rise in sales to ¥1.85 trillion ($15.59bn).
So from this report, we can see that these bad batteries that Sony made - huge misstep - cost them $429 million. Last year, the profit for the quarter was $240 million. They would have seen an 8% increase in sales. Before the PS3 launched.
Now - you say 'it doesn't matter what they could have done'. Do we know this? Its not bad electrolyte from the supplier or something? Sony is ultimately responsible for the product of course, but is that fair to say this was entirely their fault? (I'm asking.)
Well, okay. In that case, Nintendo is getting its ass handed to it by Sony in the selling of flatscreen televisions. Nintendo hasn't even put one out yet. Awful. Specious logic is fun!
I don't think either are for sale, and Nintendo's unit will be $300, but yes.
Failing? No doubt they have issues, but do you have any idea what it would take to actually sink Sony? Microsoft sells its console at a nearly continual loss, do you think they are about to tank?
*cough*SonyBMG is not Sony*cough*. I certainly don't buy from that outfit anymore.
Sez you. Let's meet back here in six months and see what's happening, deal?
(I'm actually surprised Sony hasn't received the Apple treatment - "Beleaguered Sony")
I care that they both have consoles launching and I am interested in trying both. I am interested in the launch lineup. I'm interested in specs. Controllers. Formats. But quarterly reports, do we really care that much?
Anyways, I hope Sony learns from their mistakes and improves. I will vote with my dollars accordingly until they stop behaving badly. I don't want them to "die", as some posters have mentioned; besides being exceedingly unlikely, Sony has made great things in the past. It would be nice to see a return to form, specifically for SCE and Sony Electronics. The media arms I have no use for.
Google bombing of Kerry occurred during the last US Prersidential election cycle. Those swift boat dudes, I think.
Thank you very much for the PSP info. The streaming movies thing is incredibly cool. (That takes a LOT of horsepower, if its doing realtime compression + streaming to H.264 and serving it over WiFi.)
Thank you for the reality dose, you beat me to it.
He's the Ars Technica article: Yellow Dog Linux for PS3 Announced
If we get YDL for PS3, does this not mean we can write homebrew software for it? It just seems to change the equation a bit. A $600 game console is expensive, but a $600 multicore Linux PC that can do HD, Bluray and a bunch of other interesting tricks is a lot more interesting...