Don't use mods! It encourages PC developers to slack off! There's no incentive for them to actually "finish" the game or design good UI if they know that some modder out there will do the job for them that they should be doing themselves.
Consoles always catch up and seem like they're almost right there with the PC, and then they get released and the PC is already a generation ahead in video and CPU processing power, with about 2-4 times the RAM and infinitely more storage. It's never even a contest for very long, and by the time the console is halfway through its lifespan, it has long been surpassed by the PC. It retains the benefit of being a stable hardware platform though, so that can help too, but not enough to matter all that much.
But it doesn't matter that you can upgrade the PC, because for the lifetime of the console all the games made for that console will play on it. There's new PS2 games released this year. Try running a 2008 PC game on a non-upgraded PC from 2000. Yes, you can upgrade you CPU and GPU...how much did it cost you? Wouldn't you rather not have to deal with upgrades and spend more money on games or would you rather "play" benchmarks for bragging rights for your e-penis.
Designing every game to be played with a gamepad is just very limiting. It's not the optimal controller for most games, and has be shoehorned in, and all sorts of "simplifications" must be made in order to get it to work well enough. PC gamers have much more flexibility in control schemes and developers don't have to oversimplify everything because of that.
The keyboard isn't optimal either, it's not analog. Analog movement is much more intuitive than WASD. Also try playing Diablo on your PC. How long can you play before your hands tell you to quit. Now try the PS1 version. You'll be able to play a lot longer with more comfort.
If you had a 1600x1200 display in 1997 how much did you pay for that?
720p is 1280x720. Just got a new laptop this year, guess what resolution it is. 1280x800. Guess what the old lappie from 2003 had: 1024x768. I'd wager that 1024x768 is still the most common resolution for the average computer user.
If all you play on consoles is Racing and Fighting then you're not an accurate judge of what's "hard-core" now are you? Go rent a few. Head to the local game shop and look at what's available. Check out older games too. Play some Strategy RPG's or something. Try out some of the Third Person shooters. Play some of the Adventure games and Diablo clones.
If it's playable with a gamepad then what's the problem. I've played C&C Red Alert both with and without the PS1 mouse, all the mouse does is make things a touch quicker, but the game is very much playable without it.
Complain to the developers, not about the console. It supports mice just fine, I always have a mouse attached to the PS3 (and the PS2 before it). The PS1 had a mouse as well, you could even play Warcraft II with it, which surprised me when Starcraft was released for the N64 and not the PS1 (where all the other RTS's ported to console had gone)
Back in the 80's they also stopped developing on platforms that high percentage of pirating. I remember reading interviews at the time with devs that said they dropped Amiga/ST/C64 support and went entirely DOS/X86 because of the massive piracy in the cheaper platforms.
Offtopic & speaking of games that won't save, I bought Xenogears like 13 years ago & I never could get that game to save, either on a PS1, PS2 or via an Emulator. Has anyone else here ever ran into that before?
Official Sony PS1 memory card? Some games don't get along with the third party cards.
Also your upgrade to your PC benefits you for other things - be it office documents or coding, picture editing etc. Consoles mostly don't do that at all in standard configurations. (I'm sure someone will tell me about running gimp on their PS3 or some such nonsense but it's not easy or standard)
It's quite easy to run the GIMP on your PS2 let alone the PS3. The default PS2 Linux kit install comes with a 1.foo series GIMP. (Though I eventually had GIMP 2.4.5 on mine) The install itself if reasonably user friendly, a pretty standard RH 6.foo style from what I gather. I had no Linux experience at all when I installed it on my PS2. It's even easier to run it on the PS3 since all you need is install media, it's got to be one of the easiest Linux installs a person can do. I had Linux on my PS3 within 12 hours of buying the thing.
As you said, it's not standard though. They said it was going to be, but changed their minds on it.
Although having a large HDTV is requirement of this mindset.
Depends on how you use, or where you have your console. In the living room, you'll probably want a good sized screen, but if you're like me and have Linux installed on your PS3, you'll have a desktop style setup with a smaller screen. 19" for me.
The thing that I really liked about the gamecube was the short load times compared to the PS2 and Xbox. Seriously, it seemed to take at least a minute to go back to the world map after a battle in Final Fantasy...
Extended load times in PS2 and PS1 games are a sure sign your PS2 (or PS1) is about to give up the ghost and give you DRE's. It shouldn't take a minute to get back to the world map in FFX. Some games are very hard on the drive, Everquest Online Adventures for example, if your PS2 is going bad, you'll notice it in EQOA earlier than other games.
No, what I notice is the fact that I can get more than 1 or 2 RPG's a year, and the fact that more games from Japan are released in the US. Sony respected the US market in a way Nintendo never did. Sony actively recruited non-Japanese devs early in the PSones life, hell they even encouraged ports of some PC games. List the "greatest" N64/Gamecube games, and then list the greatest PS1/PS2 games. There's more diversity of developers and gameplay in the PS1/PS2 list, while for the N64/Gamecube they're almost all first party Nintendo games. Have you seen the used N64/Gamecube market? The stores will have 10 copies of zelda, 10 copies of goldeneye, 10 copies of Metroid, because N64/Gamecube owners all pretty much bought the same first party games. The PS1/PS2 gamers are far more diverse.
Right, as a Sony fanperson, I think it's good that Sony has some competition rather than totally dominating the market. It pissed me off to no end how SCEA slacked off a bit with added functionality for the PS2. Did you know that the PS2 can do a some of the media functionality the PS3 can do? But only in Japan. Same goes for the HDD stuff. NTSC-J FFX can use the HDD but NTSC-U/C territory FFX can't.
I'm interested in why you didn't buy a backwards compatible PS3. Too expensive for you? Personally I held off on getting a PS3 as long as I could, wasn't till late 2007 that I began to think it was worth getting it in the near future. Then this year, my PS2 Linux kit HD started having issues, so I knew it was only a matter of time. I use mine for Linux, Oblivion, Orange Box, PS2/PS1 games and some media stuff.
If you develop an MMORPG specifically with consoles in mind (such as FFXI) you can design the UI to utilise the existing controller, even if it's not feature complete (You can play the game without having to chat).
FFXI has a quickchat system where you can select words/phrases. It's also how you communicate cross-language with all the Japanese players.
If it requires a keyboard and mouse (which games such as WoW arguably do) you're stuck with three choices if you want to port it to consoles - either sell the game with a keyboard and mouse (And people just love extra expense),
Not an extra expense at all, many people have a keyboard lying around that will work. If people are willing to shell out for those game with guitars/drums etc, they can shell out for a cheap USB keyboard if they don't have one already.
sell it without (and watch buyers rage about having bought software that they don't have the hardware to use) or dumb down the UI to make it workable on a standard controller (since the PC version allows you to have a lot more clickable icons than you could realistically map to a controller).
Instead of "dumb down" a better phrase is alter. When it comes to UI, simpler is faster and better. Besides, lots of console gamers have keyboards hooked up to their PS3's already since you can use it to control GameOS's XMB (including the web browser)
I'll have to admit that I don't get the concept of "Raids", I came into electronic RPG's from a tabletop back ground where parties beat the "Big Bad" with 6 - 8 characters. EQOA party size is 4, in what raiding occurs I think individual healers focus on their tank in the group of four, though I think one tank in the "Raid" had a party consisting of him and three healers. But I'm not absolutely certain on that. In FFXI you could form alliances between three groups of 6 and could macro heals as needed. The UI didn't have much of an effect at all on what you could do.
The PS2 and PS3 have USB ports for a reason. Go on, plug it in to your PS3, works great in XMB. It's up to individual developers to decide if they want it in the games.
Good question, luckily my character in EQOA was Cleric and my highest level job in FFXI was White Mage.
If memory serves me correctly, you use the shoulder button to switch between party members in EQOA. flick flick the shoulder button, flick the dpad to the ability (if needed) then circle. Very fast.
In FFXI the dpad switches between party members. But you can also macro a heal spell on a specific target, for example, when I hit Ctrl+1 that healed me, Ctrl+2 healed the the one in the second slot etc. I could also access those with the shoulder buttons. Didn't really "need" macro's except for letting others know what I was going to do.
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Don't use mods! It encourages PC developers to slack off! There's no incentive for them to actually "finish" the game or design good UI if they know that some modder out there will do the job for them that they should be doing themselves.
But it doesn't matter that you can upgrade the PC, because for the lifetime of the console all the games made for that console will play on it. There's new PS2 games released this year. Try running a 2008 PC game on a non-upgraded PC from 2000. Yes, you can upgrade you CPU and GPU...how much did it cost you? Wouldn't you rather not have to deal with upgrades and spend more money on games or would you rather "play" benchmarks for bragging rights for your e-penis.
The keyboard isn't optimal either, it's not analog. Analog movement is much more intuitive than WASD. Also try playing Diablo on your PC. How long can you play before your hands tell you to quit. Now try the PS1 version. You'll be able to play a lot longer with more comfort.
If you had a 1600x1200 display in 1997 how much did you pay for that?
720p is 1280x720. Just got a new laptop this year, guess what resolution it is. 1280x800. Guess what the old lappie from 2003 had: 1024x768. I'd wager that 1024x768 is still the most common resolution for the average computer user.
If all you play on consoles is Racing and Fighting then you're not an accurate judge of what's "hard-core" now are you? Go rent a few. Head to the local game shop and look at what's available. Check out older games too. Play some Strategy RPG's or something. Try out some of the Third Person shooters. Play some of the Adventure games and Diablo clones.
If it's playable with a gamepad then what's the problem. I've played C&C Red Alert both with and without the PS1 mouse, all the mouse does is make things a touch quicker, but the game is very much playable without it.
Complain to the developers, not about the console. It supports mice just fine, I always have a mouse attached to the PS3 (and the PS2 before it). The PS1 had a mouse as well, you could even play Warcraft II with it, which surprised me when Starcraft was released for the N64 and not the PS1 (where all the other RTS's ported to console had gone)
Back in the 80's they also stopped developing on platforms that high percentage of pirating. I remember reading interviews at the time with devs that said they dropped Amiga/ST/C64 support and went entirely DOS/X86 because of the massive piracy in the cheaper platforms.
Official Sony PS1 memory card? Some games don't get along with the third party cards.
It's quite easy to run the GIMP on your PS2 let alone the PS3. The default PS2 Linux kit install comes with a 1.foo series GIMP. (Though I eventually had GIMP 2.4.5 on mine) The install itself if reasonably user friendly, a pretty standard RH 6.foo style from what I gather. I had no Linux experience at all when I installed it on my PS2. It's even easier to run it on the PS3 since all you need is install media, it's got to be one of the easiest Linux installs a person can do. I had Linux on my PS3 within 12 hours of buying the thing.
As you said, it's not standard though. They said it was going to be, but changed their minds on it.
I can play all sorts of "homebrew" games on my PS3 and I can still play the big name games:
Depends on how you use, or where you have your console. In the living room, you'll probably want a good sized screen, but if you're like me and have Linux installed on your PS3, you'll have a desktop style setup with a smaller screen. 19" for me.
It's only 25 minutes for DMC4, it'd different for different games. Oblivion also has a 5GB install but is practically instantaneous.
Why do you keep mentioning Sony? Spore was developed by Maxi and published by Electronic Arts (EA). It's not available for the PS2/PS3 either.
Extended load times in PS2 and PS1 games are a sure sign your PS2 (or PS1) is about to give up the ghost and give you DRE's. It shouldn't take a minute to get back to the world map in FFX. Some games are very hard on the drive, Everquest Online Adventures for example, if your PS2 is going bad, you'll notice it in EQOA earlier than other games.
No, what I notice is the fact that I can get more than 1 or 2 RPG's a year, and the fact that more games from Japan are released in the US. Sony respected the US market in a way Nintendo never did. Sony actively recruited non-Japanese devs early in the PSones life, hell they even encouraged ports of some PC games. List the "greatest" N64/Gamecube games, and then list the greatest PS1/PS2 games. There's more diversity of developers and gameplay in the PS1/PS2 list, while for the N64/Gamecube they're almost all first party Nintendo games. Have you seen the used N64/Gamecube market? The stores will have 10 copies of zelda, 10 copies of goldeneye, 10 copies of Metroid, because N64/Gamecube owners all pretty much bought the same first party games. The PS1/PS2 gamers are far more diverse.
Right, as a Sony fanperson, I think it's good that Sony has some competition rather than totally dominating the market. It pissed me off to no end how SCEA slacked off a bit with added functionality for the PS2. Did you know that the PS2 can do a some of the media functionality the PS3 can do? But only in Japan. Same goes for the HDD stuff. NTSC-J FFX can use the HDD but NTSC-U/C territory FFX can't.
I'm interested in why you didn't buy a backwards compatible PS3. Too expensive for you? Personally I held off on getting a PS3 as long as I could, wasn't till late 2007 that I began to think it was worth getting it in the near future. Then this year, my PS2 Linux kit HD started having issues, so I knew it was only a matter of time. I use mine for Linux, Oblivion, Orange Box, PS2/PS1 games and some media stuff.
You know, as a PS3 owner I envy these games more than the previous ones (which are mostly multiplatform) I'd love to have these on PSN.
The PS2 can run Linux.
The PS3 can already play movies downloaded from the Playstation store.
If you develop an MMORPG specifically with consoles in mind (such as FFXI) you can design the UI to utilise the existing controller, even if it's not feature complete (You can play the game without having to chat).
FFXI has a quickchat system where you can select words/phrases. It's also how you communicate cross-language with all the Japanese players.
Not an extra expense at all, many people have a keyboard lying around that will work. If people are willing to shell out for those game with guitars/drums etc, they can shell out for a cheap USB keyboard if they don't have one already.
Instead of "dumb down" a better phrase is alter. When it comes to UI, simpler is faster and better. Besides, lots of console gamers have keyboards hooked up to their PS3's already since you can use it to control GameOS's XMB (including the web browser)
I'll have to admit that I don't get the concept of "Raids", I came into electronic RPG's from a tabletop back ground where parties beat the "Big Bad" with 6 - 8 characters. EQOA party size is 4, in what raiding occurs I think individual healers focus on their tank in the group of four, though I think one tank in the "Raid" had a party consisting of him and three healers. But I'm not absolutely certain on that. In FFXI you could form alliances between three groups of 6 and could macro heals as needed. The UI didn't have much of an effect at all on what you could do.
The PS2 and PS3 have USB ports for a reason. Go on, plug it in to your PS3, works great in XMB. It's up to individual developers to decide if they want it in the games.
Besides, analog movement is a good thing.
Yep, I played it on the PS2. Most devs didn't go to the effort of doing anything other than 480i on the PS2. Squaresoft never did.
Good question, luckily my character in EQOA was Cleric and my highest level job in FFXI was White Mage.
If memory serves me correctly, you use the shoulder button to switch between party members in EQOA. flick flick the shoulder button, flick the dpad to the ability (if needed) then circle. Very fast.
In FFXI the dpad switches between party members. But you can also macro a heal spell on a specific target, for example, when I hit Ctrl+1 that healed me, Ctrl+2 healed the the one in the second slot etc. I could also access those with the shoulder buttons. Didn't really "need" macro's except for letting others know what I was going to do.