Bah, don't worry. Nintendo knows what they're doing, you need look no further than the gamecube. Far more powerful than the PS2 for all practical purposes on theoretically weaker hardware. A really well done GCN game(the new zelda, RE4) looks as good(or better in some ways) as a really well done XBox game, and the hardware/development hump difference is huge. Plus they managed to all but remove load times w/o an HDD. The N64 was more powerful than the PS1(comparable to the rendering power of an SGI workstation of the time), just limited by storage capacity. The SNES was as strong as the genesis in it's own ways. The NES however, was weak compared to the SMS, but now we're 20 years back.
Going by specs is always a bad idea. Remember all the PS2 hype? Yea. Just ignore it and wait to see actual moving footage of comparitive gen games before you go off and pan one as weak and praise another as strong.
Besides, according to many rumors, it's a 2.5GHz 4 core PPC(vs. the Xboxes 3GHz 3 core PPC) with comparitive graphics processors and RAM to the XBox 360. Certainly no slouch.
If anything I'd call the PS3 the weakest of the 3. It fits the Sony pattern, and Sony is the company with the LEAST software development experience. Remember that both Nintendo AND MS have been doing development for 3 decades. Sony's been doing it for just over 1.
It's also 1 million units ahead in Japan. FYI. Before these sales figures. The PSP hasn't broken 1 mil yet either here or over there, while the DS has in spades. While if this keeps up I won't be able to say how the DS leads the PSP by 3:1, the unit margin will continue to grow.
If we define success as penetration, than the Gameboy line spanks all comers like a redheaded stepchild, and the DS is spanking the PSP.
PSP looks an awful lot like the gamegear atm, but I'm not gonna set that opinion in stone until next year.
The PSP counting these sales figures has sold 1.5 million units in the US and japan. The DS otoh has sold 6 million(It sold just under 4 mil AT launch). It was outselling the DS for a brief period of time in japan(by a very small margin), but that's since reversed.
Yes, that's a 4.5 MILLION unit deficit, and that's JUST PSP v. DS before any AAA DS titles even hit the states(and the PSP has a weak lineup for a while, if you don't like the launch titles you're gonna be SOL for a little while). You can check NPD funworld and magic box numbers for yourself.
I don't buy sony stuff anymore(I don't tolerate their bad build quality and crappy customer service), but that aside, the PSP isn't even a ripple atm. The DS leads it by 4:1. And yes, they both launched at the same time in japan.
Sony dropped the ball here. It's too costly, it wasn't launched during the holidays, and the best title could be done on a freakin' GAMEBOY(not a GBA, a Gameboy).
Sony has a Game Gear on their hands(not an N-Gage).
Except nintendo has a patent on emulation on handheld video game platforms. So don't expect it coming out on the PSP without some lawsuits and shennanigans.
If you want emulation(NES, SMS, some MAME stuff), you're better off with an SP(or DS, but really) and a flash cart.
But I don't know how many units they actually shipped here.
The completely sold out of the small number they shipped to Japan, which is why the "heating up the sales charts" is kind of misleading. They're still at under a million sold in their home country, and at these numbers they won't come close to GBA penetration for a decade.
The DS has hit just under 2 million units in Japan for example, and the PSP is still at under half that, albeit catching up.
As it stands right now, the PSP is a distant third(sold less than half what the DS has), with the DS being a very distant second(selling under a tenth of what the SP sold), and saying anything else is just being dishonest at best.
Failure? No, too soon to call anyway, but definately not nearly as successful of a launch and early period as the GBA was and the DS is... yet anyway.
Yea, it's generally XBox, Gamecube, PS2 for people with all 3, in that order. Live functionality tends to firm up the XBox version, exclusives and controller preference can change it up a bit as well, but very few people I know will buy the PS2 version if there is an XBox and/or GC version.
There just isn't any point to it. You get nicer graphics, and insanely better load times(provided the port doesn't suck) as you mentioned. Oh, and don't forget 4 controller ports.
You're banking on third parties? Excuse me while I stifle my laughter. Weren't a SEGA fan or someone who held out for the N64 because of the SNES were ya? Don't bank on anything until the first year is over and done with or things are on the shelves. You'll learn eventually, and with Sony, you don't even have the strong first party development to pick up the slack.
Things change, and some of us are quite frankly sick to death of the Sony reality distortion field and their absolutely atrocious build quality(NEVER again, not after 3 PS2s in 2 years and 6 years+ of lies).
It's not funny, it's true. This was actually being spread around a few years back. I presume by Sony.
I really don't get why people still buy Sony in the console realm when there are two competitors with FAR better systems and FAR better in house development(if you factor in third parties while making these decisions you're making the classic Sega/N64 mistake and it WILL bite you on the ass one of these days). Even if one of them is the company I STILL haven't forgiven for ME and NT4.
The XBox can take a bullet, the Cube can be dragged behind a truck. Both will still play. Own a PS2 for a year with gas heat and as a smoker, and say buh-bye wallet.
Yes, I'm bitter. Go through 3 identical consoles in 2 years and you'd be bitter too. Sony = crap.
It's not proprietary. It's 802.11b. The protocol is proprietary. Packet dumps of the DS communicating have been out there since a few days after it was launched. The guys at XLink almost have the thing tunneled(I should go check on that) and a few other people are working on figuring out the protocol.
Anyway, any prism2 chipset card should be gtg on linux, you could use a linksys WRT54G router flashed with custom firmware, or a broadcom chipset card on windows/OSX.
If it works with kismet/netstumbler, you should be fine, but don't buy anything yet.
I'll flame people. They'll flame me. We'll get into a how long have you been gaming virtual penis measuring contest. We'll all enjoy it and point at each other and laugh. And no opinions will be swayed.
God himself could descend down upon gaming forums populated entirely by evangelicals in console launch years and declare his preference, backed up by Jesus and the holy ghost, and this is still how it would happen.
and it accounts for a LOT. The liscensing practises aren't that different anymore(that's how Sony gained marketshare in the first place though), and the only thing I can think of that they pushed at all is the EyeToy. Which you mentioned, and which is also fairly recent.
It's also easier to make a high graphical quality XBox game or Gamecube game than it is to make a PS2 game, but that's kind of tangenital.
Do you think the Capcom 5 are getting ported to the PS2 because Capcom likes the platform(the general manager at least HATES it and Sony)? They're not. They're being ported because shareholders and management look at the sales on the distantly behind the PS2 Gamecube and think... how much better could we do if we had 4 times the userbase? 4 times the userbase means 4 times the sales! Tada... the game goes to the PS2.
Niche games also tend to start on the PS2 because of the userbase. Which would you rather develop on, the platform with 100 million people, or one of the platforms with 40 million? Be sure to run your answer through the happy fun business filter. Where does the game go? The PS2.
Sony deserves no credit for it. The developers do. Sony is primarily a platform company that has the library they do because of sheer inertia.
99% of the good games that came out on the PS2 could've easily gone to the XBox... or the Gamecube. And they probably would've been better for it. The point is that Sony doesn't, by and large, make them or even have an interest in the companies that do.
Sony has made a few good games. Gran Turismo(not my cup of tea, but it's good) and ICO to name two. Nintendo pretty much LIVES on their first and second parties alone, while if it weren't for third parties, what would Sony be left with?
A handful of games, and a console that breaks at the drop of a hat. I don't understand platform loyalty. Developer loyalty, yea.
Oh and Rez was originally a DC game, and Katamari Damacy is made by Namco.
Wonderful parallell: SEGA had 2 successful products in a row(SMS/Genesis) then one quasi-successful handheld(Gamegear) before they started skating downhill at a rapid pace.
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Bah, don't worry. Nintendo knows what they're doing, you need look no further than the gamecube. Far more powerful than the PS2 for all practical purposes on theoretically weaker hardware. A really well done GCN game(the new zelda, RE4) looks as good(or better in some ways) as a really well done XBox game, and the hardware/development hump difference is huge. Plus they managed to all but remove load times w/o an HDD. The N64 was more powerful than the PS1(comparable to the rendering power of an SGI workstation of the time), just limited by storage capacity. The SNES was as strong as the genesis in it's own ways. The NES however, was weak compared to the SMS, but now we're 20 years back.
Going by specs is always a bad idea. Remember all the PS2 hype? Yea. Just ignore it and wait to see actual moving footage of comparitive gen games before you go off and pan one as weak and praise another as strong.
Besides, according to many rumors, it's a 2.5GHz 4 core PPC(vs. the Xboxes 3GHz 3 core PPC) with comparitive graphics processors and RAM to the XBox 360. Certainly no slouch.
If anything I'd call the PS3 the weakest of the 3. It fits the Sony pattern, and Sony is the company with the LEAST software development experience. Remember that both Nintendo AND MS have been doing development for 3 decades. Sony's been doing it for just over 1.
The Zelda screens are for the Zelda coming out this year on the Gamecube....
It's also 1 million units ahead in Japan. FYI. Before these sales figures. The PSP hasn't broken 1 mil yet either here or over there, while the DS has in spades. While if this keeps up I won't be able to say how the DS leads the PSP by 3:1, the unit margin will continue to grow.
If we define success as penetration, than the Gameboy line spanks all comers like a redheaded stepchild, and the DS is spanking the PSP.
PSP looks an awful lot like the gamegear atm, but I'm not gonna set that opinion in stone until next year.
And a GTA. Now name another game you'll still be playing in 10 years.
16-bit generation = the golden age. Everything else is just fluff.
The loot isn't that great. It's decent, for sure, but you can put together something as good from instance drops.
Which is precisely how it should be. The PvP stuff should just look damn cool.
The PSP counting these sales figures has sold 1.5 million units in the US and japan. The DS otoh has sold 6 million(It sold just under 4 mil AT launch). It was outselling the DS for a brief period of time in japan(by a very small margin), but that's since reversed.
Yes, that's a 4.5 MILLION unit deficit, and that's JUST PSP v. DS before any AAA DS titles even hit the states(and the PSP has a weak lineup for a while, if you don't like the launch titles you're gonna be SOL for a little while). You can check NPD funworld and magic box numbers for yourself.
I don't buy sony stuff anymore(I don't tolerate their bad build quality and crappy customer service), but that aside, the PSP isn't even a ripple atm. The DS leads it by 4:1. And yes, they both launched at the same time in japan.
Sony dropped the ball here. It's too costly, it wasn't launched during the holidays, and the best title could be done on a freakin' GAMEBOY(not a GBA, a Gameboy).
Sony has a Game Gear on their hands(not an N-Gage).
Except nintendo has a patent on emulation on handheld video game platforms. So don't expect it coming out on the PSP without some lawsuits and shennanigans.
If you want emulation(NES, SMS, some MAME stuff), you're better off with an SP(or DS, but really) and a flash cart.
But I don't know how many units they actually shipped here.
The completely sold out of the small number they shipped to Japan, which is why the "heating up the sales charts" is kind of misleading. They're still at under a million sold in their home country, and at these numbers they won't come close to GBA penetration for a decade.
The DS has hit just under 2 million units in Japan for example, and the PSP is still at under half that, albeit catching up.
As it stands right now, the PSP is a distant third(sold less than half what the DS has), with the DS being a very distant second(selling under a tenth of what the SP sold), and saying anything else is just being dishonest at best.
Failure? No, too soon to call anyway, but definately not nearly as successful of a launch and early period as the GBA was and the DS is... yet anyway.
Reason to buy a PSP, the technically superior handheld, is a game you could easily play on a GBA....
oookkkkkk....
Lumines, Metal Gear Card Battler, and a bunch of sports games. All with Sony MEGA-AWESOME build quality! I think I'll hold off for a while.
Yea, it's generally XBox, Gamecube, PS2 for people with all 3, in that order. Live functionality tends to firm up the XBox version, exclusives and controller preference can change it up a bit as well, but very few people I know will buy the PS2 version if there is an XBox and/or GC version.
There just isn't any point to it. You get nicer graphics, and insanely better load times(provided the port doesn't suck) as you mentioned. Oh, and don't forget 4 controller ports.
I've noticed this. Mario Kart is like the Errol Flynn of video games.
Yes. Both still work. As does my Genesis, SMS, Sega CD, SNES, N64, Saturn, 3DO, and Atari 2600. You had a point?
You're banking on third parties? Excuse me while I stifle my laughter. Weren't a SEGA fan or someone who held out for the N64 because of the SNES were ya? Don't bank on anything until the first year is over and done with or things are on the shelves. You'll learn eventually, and with Sony, you don't even have the strong first party development to pick up the slack.
Things change, and some of us are quite frankly sick to death of the Sony reality distortion field and their absolutely atrocious build quality(NEVER again, not after 3 PS2s in 2 years and 6 years+ of lies).
It's not funny, it's true. This was actually being spread around a few years back. I presume by Sony.
I really don't get why people still buy Sony in the console realm when there are two competitors with FAR better systems and FAR better in house development(if you factor in third parties while making these decisions you're making the classic Sega/N64 mistake and it WILL bite you on the ass one of these days). Even if one of them is the company I STILL haven't forgiven for ME and NT4.
The XBox can take a bullet, the Cube can be dragged behind a truck. Both will still play. Own a PS2 for a year with gas heat and as a smoker, and say buh-bye wallet.
Yes, I'm bitter. Go through 3 identical consoles in 2 years and you'd be bitter too. Sony = crap.
Possible, and cheaper(memory sticks are expensive!), with more storage I believe.
Screw Farscape. They cancelled MST3K for, IIRC, "Black Scorpion."
At least farscape was cancelled for something WATCHABLE.
It's not proprietary. It's 802.11b. The protocol is proprietary. Packet dumps of the DS communicating have been out there since a few days after it was launched. The guys at XLink almost have the thing tunneled(I should go check on that) and a few other people are working on figuring out the protocol.
Anyway, any prism2 chipset card should be gtg on linux, you could use a linksys WRT54G router flashed with custom firmware, or a broadcom chipset card on windows/OSX.
If it works with kismet/netstumbler, you should be fine, but don't buy anything yet.
I'll flame people. They'll flame me. We'll get into a how long have you been gaming virtual penis measuring contest. We'll all enjoy it and point at each other and laugh. And no opinions will be swayed.
God himself could descend down upon gaming forums populated entirely by evangelicals in console launch years and declare his preference, backed up by Jesus and the holy ghost, and this is still how it would happen.
It umm... doesn't even make the top 10 last I checked.
I think it's sold 6.7 million copies worldwide atm. Nothing to sneeze at, and very respectable...
But the thing is there are a LOT of huge sellers in previous console generations.
Mario Kart 64 for example sold something stupid like 12 million units worldwide. Mario 64 sold 10 million units in Japan and the US alone.
And that's just Nintendo, last generation.
I guess it depends upon your definition of biggest.
You can actually see an approximation of them winning a Pennant. *rimshot*
Game library!? WHAT Game Library!?
You mean the slew of franchise games that have been announced for both systems but are still sitting at TBA release dates?
Or do you mean such quality and hot selling titles as Everybody's golf portable(the hottest selling PSP game!)?
"I just read about Ashlee in us weekly. Those guys at the football game were total jerks."
and it accounts for a LOT. The liscensing practises aren't that different anymore(that's how Sony gained marketshare in the first place though), and the only thing I can think of that they pushed at all is the EyeToy. Which you mentioned, and which is also fairly recent.
It's also easier to make a high graphical quality XBox game or Gamecube game than it is to make a PS2 game, but that's kind of tangenital.
Do you think the Capcom 5 are getting ported to the PS2 because Capcom likes the platform(the general manager at least HATES it and Sony)? They're not. They're being ported because shareholders and management look at the sales on the distantly behind the PS2 Gamecube and think... how much better could we do if we had 4 times the userbase? 4 times the userbase means 4 times the sales! Tada... the game goes to the PS2.
Niche games also tend to start on the PS2 because of the userbase. Which would you rather develop on, the platform with 100 million people, or one of the platforms with 40 million? Be sure to run your answer through the happy fun business filter. Where does the game go? The PS2.
Sony deserves no credit for it. The developers do. Sony is primarily a platform company that has the library they do because of sheer inertia.
99% of the good games that came out on the PS2 could've easily gone to the XBox... or the Gamecube. And they probably would've been better for it. The point is that Sony doesn't, by and large, make them or even have an interest in the companies that do.
Sony has made a few good games. Gran Turismo(not my cup of tea, but it's good) and ICO to name two. Nintendo pretty much LIVES on their first and second parties alone, while if it weren't for third parties, what would Sony be left with?
A handful of games, and a console that breaks at the drop of a hat. I don't understand platform loyalty. Developer loyalty, yea.
Oh and Rez was originally a DC game, and Katamari Damacy is made by Namco.
Wonderful parallell:
SEGA had 2 successful products in a row(SMS/Genesis) then one quasi-successful handheld(Gamegear) before they started skating downhill at a rapid pace.
Hmm...