obviously you have no idea that the DS is currently in first place in the current handheld console generation. if you think the psp is big and bulky, what do you think of the DS? lol.
besides we all know MS's console track record. if they/were/ to create a handheld console, you best believe it would be huge.
i see way more people with psp's than ds's, but the ds is still #1. i see way more people with ipods than ds's; the ds isnt "killing" the ipod.
as for watching movies on a psp, its easy to look down on it if you dont own one. umds are smaller than dvds and more portable, but most people prefer to buy their own dvds and do the ripping themselves. an optional $60 purchase nets you enough space to encode almost any movie you wish. try to compare watching a movie on a psp to watching on a current generation ipod's screen and/then/ let me know what you think.
raise your hands, if you realize that the article is pure unfounded speculation based upon information almost a year old. for all we know the project in question is the dayum UMPC that theyve already revealed... this guy posted an ambigious title on his blog in order to drum up press for his book. [read first para]
if microsoft was prepping a true handheld, the rumor mill would have been abuzz. the only handheld gameconsole MS is concerned w/ is the UMPC for now at least.
with lackluster sales of the x360, i dont see MS greenlighting another expensive hardware launch anytime soon. they wouldnt risk splintering development across three [two consoles, if they decide to drop xbox1 support]; its not like they have an army of first party developers, much less third party houses...
the ps2 replacement deal is overrated as well. sure there are very many people who have experienced some form of disc read error, but to suggest that 50 million users bought a second ps2 instead of:
1) getting it replaced under warranty
1a) paying to get it replaced outside of warranty 2) getting upset and buying a rival system 3) buying an used system
its hard to believe you mister anonymous coward. you mean to tell me that in the last five or so years, your ps2s conveniently broke outside of warranty? or that you wouldnt have wisened up and bought the extended warranty after say... your second ps2 fried?
most retailers extend a 1 year warranty on top of the manufacturers warranty for just making a purchase at their store. it sounds like youre lying and speading FUD [hence your posting AC], or you did something that voided your warranty and thats why you couldnt return yours. if youre doing something that broke the warranty [like installing a mod-chip] the cause for your anger probably should be focused in the mirror. if thats the case, that makes sense why you would buy a whole new ps2 instead of just having yours replaced.
for the record my ps2 works fine; had it for years, BUT my xbox gives me read errors with a quarter of the discs i play, even brand new ones.
you have a point. i think that sony is still doing alot of damage to the x360 market buy consistently selling more units of the ps2 than MS is selling x360s.
the fact that sony has not seemed to be slacking off on titles either says alot. the releases slated for this year seem to show that inspite of a new console due this year, they are still committing to solid titles [read: sequels] for ps2. MGS: subsistence, kingdom hearts2, final fantasy12, god of war2... even nintendo has the new zelda title on its way for gamecube, whereas microsoft has all but abandoned the xbox entirely.
i think the MS marketting did an excellent job catering to the hardcore market, but they have a long way to go before the casual and family market comes around to appreciating the xbox brand. everything about the xbox screams "L337!!!!!!", but thats a tough sale in order to land the mass market. i think that last gen the xbox did well by having the more powerful system that comes with being later to market. the graphics [and halo/ splinter cell] won over many people who were just buying into the generation. being first may cripple them this go around, since presumably the ps3 will trump the x360 graphically [we shall see if thats true], and the revolution will eat the casual gamers, the jaded gamer market, and the i hate sony market.
that is if nintendo will be able to secure the rights to offer all of their third party titles for download. most of our most beloved series outside of the main nintendo franchises are third party titles.
when playstation games were released they capitalized on the fact that for the first time we were really able to play near arcade quality games at home. the tekken series was unheard of on a home console. virtua fighter was no where near as graphically intense. the psx generation heralded the first set of 3d platform games, and due to cd media... game length grew by leaps and bounds. the space afforded by cd gave psx such a huge advantage in terms of developer freedom in terms of content, game length, music, texturing etc...
the oncoming generation will most likely be a let down until 2-3 years out, when developers will have had a project or two under their belt and more experience with the platform. i have hopes with the ps3, but even at best case scenario the launch titles will only tap a small portion of the potential for the console.
you echo my greatest worry about nintendo and the revolution. so far it seems like everyone is getting really really excited over nothing. the nintendo hype train is in full swing, and we dont even realize its all hype. i'm not above admitting that im caught up in this hype myself; i am curious about the revolution, but im not going to dedicate my money blindly based upon a few supposed promises.
so far we know little next to nothing about the revolution. i want details. i want games. i want screenshots.
i blame the media. they are so busy selling us on the idea that the new controller marks a radical paradigm shift in gaming, that they have neglected to show us any proof. what good is the greatest controller known to mankind if there arent any fun games for it? yes, nintendo has a great trackrecord, but there are way too many unknowns. we know more about the ps3 than the revolution, yet the ps3 is almost daily villified for not giving out enough info.
we know/how/ the controller is supposed to work. have we seen any of the supposed "sleeves" for the controller? have we seen any screenshots or movies of actual games [except for that crappy golf game]? how will the network service work? will it be just like the ds? what about this download service, will i be able to download third party titles that nintendo does not have the rights to [most of our favorite nintendo games, other than mario, zelda and the flagship franchises are third party titles]? if i already own a title, will i have to pay for it again to play it on my revolution? how much will downloaded games cost? how much will the revolution cost? these are real questions that need/real/ answers.
until i get some answers, i will stick nintendo at the bottom of the stack. i love nintendo as much as the next guy, but until i have/some/ sort of idea of what the hell the revolution really is... i cant force myself to lust over it.
i dont mean that i specifically want more squad based shooters and FPSs. i mean i want to see a few more titles that are polished to thier level. i want to know that there will be quality titles in multiple genres for me to play by the time i dish out to buy mine.
i dunno, what do you think will go over better: people that can download demos and indie software, or "retro" AAA - titles that have already been rated and proven fun?
honestly, the live arcade serves a purpose, i dont think that the rev or ps3 download services will even be in the same level of competition. they have huge back libraries and way more loyal fans to those series, whereas microsoft doesnt. i think the live arcade will survive, but MS marketting can NOT position it as a competitor to someone like nintendos full first party back catalog. live arcade will be an alternative to the rev and ps3 solutions, not a superior solution.
the $300 version of the xbox is not "complete". titles have already surfaced that/require/ the harddrive. if you buy a core version, youre SoL if you want to play all titles.
the trolling is starting to get out of hand. you dont know the price of the ps3 yet, and i dont see how you found a way to bring in a swipe at the ps3 when the topic is about the xbox live arcade...
for all we know sony could pull a coup and release the "full" ps3 at the same price as the core x360. not unheard of for sony.
i think my beef is that these downloads are not across the board. i can access xbox arcade via my xbox1, but i can not download robotron or geometry wars or any of the like, because they are optimized for the x360 architecture, and MS doesnt care enough to create a port for us older users.
i dont care about nice shiny graphics either; but i would be lying if i said that they didnt enhance an otherwise good experience. to me, the graphics are the icing. a solid involved game is its own reward, but now i need to upgrade again in order to enjoy that?
ill eventually buy a x360, but i need to wait and see more GR:aw and CoD-like titles to convince me first. im not a fan of having a $400 paperweight for my entertainment center until halo3 comes out/eventually/.
the funny thing is i own the original mutant storm for xbox. i downloaded it from their early incarnation of live arcade. it runs at high res too. this is regular xbox here mind you.
the let down is that it costs $400 to play a few titles that could very well run on the $150 xboxes we already own.
well considering that they sold around a million and a half in a two month xmas period and they went into production in august. i would say that the shortage seems suspicious to me as well.
of the total sales, the x360 is not sold out in other regions in the same way it is sold out here in the US. and here, now you are able to find a few in stores; mainly core systems, but they are available...
theres no way to gauge how many systems would have sold if there were no shortage at all. if only three million people want x360s, but there are only 2 million x360s in the world, there will be a shortage. does that naturally mean that the x360 will sell 100 million units? of course not. theres very little that says that the x360 will sell at all once the early adopters have all been satiated. that responsibility relies on the developers ability to create exclusive content. then we shall see.
if i were MS, i would continue to keep production at a level/just slightly below/ demand until november, shower the market with consoles and then pray that my developers will have a big enough truck by then to throw at the ps3 launch juggernaut.
oh, and i would stop imagining that x360 owners are going to be absolutely loyal. people jump ship, and im not alone in that i plan to buy more than one next gen console this year. look at how many people sold their DS's for PSP's at launch, and vice versa.
i would like to see nintendo fare better this go around, but they really need to churn out some serious AAA titles quickly in order to capitalize on the early adopter market. due to the increased demands that games have required for the last two generations, excluding quality concerns, nintendo just couldnt keep up with sony in terms of overall title output. third party support is more important to a console than ever. since it takes longer than ever to gather and refine design and artistic elements for a game.
as a gamer, i buy maybe up to five to ten titles a year, depending... i play even more than that. when i walk into a store ready to buy, the number of choices i have actually matter. i can not see myself walking into a store to buy a new title and only having four or so options. if im not a fan of the mario series, or if im tired of playing metroid, that leaves me much less choice in what to buy. thats the only reason i dont have all three consoles yet.
nintendo ruled america in the 8 and 16 bit era, but we gamers have grown up. nintendo has not. the major pull that made nintendo such a ruling force back in those days was the number of games available. that was due to the sheer amount of third party developers. now that crown rests on sonys head. THATS why they are the market leader. not because they have the best hardware [because they dont], not because they create the highest quality games [you have 4 clunkers for every solid game], but because sony and its third party armada cater to/every/ market and genre. theres a sony game for everyone.
i have the benefit of being an xbox and ps2 owner and also having played most of those games at some point, and i dont think its the same.
dead or alive has a nice wow factor, but it gets pretty old quick when you start playing more dedicated fighting games for the xbox or ps2. elder scrolls and KOTOR both benefit from being lateral PC ports. same with halflife2, doom3, and farcry if you want to be technical. [halflife2 being the better of all the latter, obviously]
all of the consoles have their strengths and weaknesses. but even i have to admit that the xbox is the most lacking when it comes to AAA exclusives. because if i wasnt too lazy to upgrade my pc, i would probably own most of my xbox library for pc instead.
i rememeber reading another one of the delay rumor reports here a few days ago, and the cause was due to a memo from one of the manufacturers of ps3 parts. they were supposed to start ramping up starting in june. so at best case scenario if they churn out 1,000,000 a month from june til november... thats easily five million units created by launch. that still wont be enough to meet xmas demand. i doubt they will be as strapped for units as the x360 though. microsoft made less than 2 million units in a five month period?!?!?
theres no way on earth that sony will be able to crank out enough ps3s to meet demand. no matter how streamlined their manufacturing is or no matter what major titles are released on competing consoles. same will probably go with the revolution.
speaking of which, when is that coming out anyways? =) sony let most of its plans out the bag, so now lets focus on the one question mark left.
teh arcade is a great draw, but the real success is geometry wars. its a runaway smash with alot of buzz. that and the lack of a wide variety of solid retail titles. buying a full version of a demo for a fraction of the cost of a regular x360 title [and happens to be more fun] is a no brainer. when the AAA x360 titles arrive, maybe thats when we should compare numbers.
basically people have a $400 machine and are dying to play something on it. no big deal. but for the time being, they need to give geometry wars most of the credit there.
add to that, halo2 and GTS:SA both came out around the same time. the launch of halo2 didnt have any effect whatsoever on the sales of GTA:SA.
people who are waiting on the ps3 will buy a ps3. if they already have a x360 they will pick up the ps3 and maybe halo3 instead of one of the soso ps3 launch titles.
but most likely, halo3 will not be ready in five months time. microsoft takes its time to hype a game of that magnitude. if halo3 is ready by november, i can guarantee it will be the buggiest, glitchiest piece of crap ever. expect halo3 to be released in 2007, in the same timeframe as the halo movie.
there will always be similar balance issues. case in point: if you have a precision optical mouse, chances are you will aim better and easier than a gamer using the standard clunky ps2 roller mouse that came with his dell.
if you have a t1 line and a souped up gaming pc, you are more likely to be more responsive and appear to have better reflexes than a player playing on a shared dsl line and getting 15-30 frames per second on his two year old pc.
same in the console world. connection speed/does/ matter for the most part. so does having at your disposal additional items such as variable turbo buttons and programmable buttons.
i think that sony started off on the right foot with the ps2 accepting a standard usb keyboard/ mouse, but i think that many game should fully support such. thats in the hands of the developers; not sony.
sony is large enough to take the hit early on and recoup losses over the lifecycle of the ps3. as manufacturing prices go down. another thing to take into consideration is the fact that many of the same parts of the blu-ray drive that sony is sticking into the ps3 will be interchangable for use in their standalone blu ray players. so that is an additional savings for sony since they can use the same plant to supply the needs for several products.
given SOE's already large market of MMOs, i doubt that they would make the ps3 network incompatible with their larger franchises. i highly doubt it. if they spin it right they will probably use the ps3 to prop up some of their dwindling MMO franchises like star wars galaxies.
with ffxi square/ sony opted to allow pc and ps2 players to co-habitate, if the developer wishes to run their own server, why would sony outlaw an already accepted practice on their part?
blu ray or not, over the next five years 9 gigs probably will not be enough to hold a full game. some current-gen games flirted with the 9 gig barrier. its wishful thinking if they think games wont get any larger in the next 5years or so...
even if blu-ray fails as a media conduit, it will still accomplish its goal in giving developers more freedom and space. there no telling how far technology will advance in five years, or whether some new process will require more space.
good prediction. unfortunately, sony has been mum about the whole grid computing thing since before e3. what happened to the ability to combine cells to process info?
Slashdot Mirror
"Its too big and bulky..."
/were/ to create a handheld console, you best believe it would be huge.
/then/ let me know what you think.
obviously you have no idea that the DS is currently in first place in the current handheld console generation. if you think the psp is big and bulky, what do you think of the DS? lol.
besides we all know MS's console track record. if they
i see way more people with psp's than ds's, but the ds is still #1. i see way more people with ipods than ds's; the ds isnt "killing" the ipod.
as for watching movies on a psp, its easy to look down on it if you dont own one. umds are smaller than dvds and more portable, but most people prefer to buy their own dvds and do the ripping themselves. an optional $60 purchase nets you enough space to encode almost any movie you wish. try to compare watching a movie on a psp to watching on a current generation ipod's screen and
raise your hands, if you realize that the article is pure unfounded speculation based upon information almost a year old. for all we know the project in question is the dayum UMPC that theyve already revealed... this guy posted an ambigious title on his blog in order to drum up press for his book. [read first para]
if microsoft was prepping a true handheld, the rumor mill would have been abuzz. the only handheld gameconsole MS is concerned w/ is the UMPC for now at least.
with lackluster sales of the x360, i dont see MS greenlighting another expensive hardware launch anytime soon. they wouldnt risk splintering development across three [two consoles, if they decide to drop xbox1 support]; its not like they have an army of first party developers, much less third party houses...
the ps2 replacement deal is overrated as well. sure there are very many people who have experienced some form of disc read error, but to suggest that 50 million users bought a second ps2 instead of:
1) getting it replaced under warranty
1a) paying to get it replaced outside of warranty
2) getting upset and buying a rival system
3) buying an used system
its hard to believe you mister anonymous coward. you mean to tell me that in the last five or so years, your ps2s conveniently broke outside of warranty? or that you wouldnt have wisened up and bought the extended warranty after say... your second ps2 fried?
most retailers extend a 1 year warranty on top of the manufacturers warranty for just making a purchase at their store. it sounds like youre lying and speading FUD [hence your posting AC], or you did something that voided your warranty and thats why you couldnt return yours. if youre doing something that broke the warranty [like installing a mod-chip] the cause for your anger probably should be focused in the mirror. if thats the case, that makes sense why you would buy a whole new ps2 instead of just having yours replaced.
for the record my ps2 works fine; had it for years, BUT my xbox gives me read errors with a quarter of the discs i play, even brand new ones.
you have a point. i think that sony is still doing alot of damage to the x360 market buy consistently selling more units of the ps2 than MS is selling x360s.
the fact that sony has not seemed to be slacking off on titles either says alot. the releases slated for this year seem to show that inspite of a new console due this year, they are still committing to solid titles [read: sequels] for ps2. MGS: subsistence, kingdom hearts2, final fantasy12, god of war2... even nintendo has the new zelda title on its way for gamecube, whereas microsoft has all but abandoned the xbox entirely.
i think the MS marketting did an excellent job catering to the hardcore market, but they have a long way to go before the casual and family market comes around to appreciating the xbox brand. everything about the xbox screams "L337!!!!!!", but thats a tough sale in order to land the mass market. i think that last gen the xbox did well by having the more powerful system that comes with being later to market. the graphics [and halo/ splinter cell] won over many people who were just buying into the generation. being first may cripple them this go around, since presumably the ps3 will trump the x360 graphically [we shall see if thats true], and the revolution will eat the casual gamers, the jaded gamer market, and the i hate sony market.
that is if nintendo will be able to secure the rights to offer all of their third party titles for download. most of our most beloved series outside of the main nintendo franchises are third party titles.
when playstation games were released they capitalized on the fact that for the first time we were really able to play near arcade quality games at home. the tekken series was unheard of on a home console. virtua fighter was no where near as graphically intense. the psx generation heralded the first set of 3d platform games, and due to cd media... game length grew by leaps and bounds. the space afforded by cd gave psx such a huge advantage in terms of developer freedom in terms of content, game length, music, texturing etc...
the oncoming generation will most likely be a let down until 2-3 years out, when developers will have had a project or two under their belt and more experience with the platform. i have hopes with the ps3, but even at best case scenario the launch titles will only tap a small portion of the potential for the console.
you echo my greatest worry about nintendo and the revolution. so far it seems like everyone is getting really really excited over nothing. the nintendo hype train is in full swing, and we dont even realize its all hype. i'm not above admitting that im caught up in this hype myself; i am curious about the revolution, but im not going to dedicate my money blindly based upon a few supposed promises.
/how/ the controller is supposed to work. have we seen any of the supposed "sleeves" for the controller? have we seen any screenshots or movies of actual games [except for that crappy golf game]? how will the network service work? will it be just like the ds? what about this download service, will i be able to download third party titles that nintendo does not have the rights to [most of our favorite nintendo games, other than mario, zelda and the flagship franchises are third party titles]? if i already own a title, will i have to pay for it again to play it on my revolution? how much will downloaded games cost? how much will the revolution cost? these are real questions that need /real/ answers.
/some/ sort of idea of what the hell the revolution really is... i cant force myself to lust over it.
so far we know little next to nothing about the revolution. i want details. i want games. i want screenshots.
i blame the media. they are so busy selling us on the idea that the new controller marks a radical paradigm shift in gaming, that they have neglected to show us any proof. what good is the greatest controller known to mankind if there arent any fun games for it? yes, nintendo has a great trackrecord, but there are way too many unknowns. we know more about the ps3 than the revolution, yet the ps3 is almost daily villified for not giving out enough info.
we know
until i get some answers, i will stick nintendo at the bottom of the stack. i love nintendo as much as the next guy, but until i have
i dont mean that i specifically want more squad based shooters and FPSs. i mean i want to see a few more titles that are polished to thier level. i want to know that there will be quality titles in multiple genres for me to play by the time i dish out to buy mine.
i dunno, what do you think will go over better: people that can download demos and indie software, or "retro" AAA - titles that have already been rated and proven fun?
honestly, the live arcade serves a purpose, i dont think that the rev or ps3 download services will even be in the same level of competition. they have huge back libraries and way more loyal fans to those series, whereas microsoft doesnt. i think the live arcade will survive, but MS marketting can NOT position it as a competitor to someone like nintendos full first party back catalog. live arcade will be an alternative to the rev and ps3 solutions, not a superior solution.
the $300 version of the xbox is not "complete". titles have already surfaced that /require/ the harddrive. if you buy a core version, youre SoL if you want to play all titles.
the trolling is starting to get out of hand. you dont know the price of the ps3 yet, and i dont see how you found a way to bring in a swipe at the ps3 when the topic is about the xbox live arcade...
for all we know sony could pull a coup and release the "full" ps3 at the same price as the core x360. not unheard of for sony.
i think my beef is that these downloads are not across the board. i can access xbox arcade via my xbox1, but i can not download robotron or geometry wars or any of the like, because they are optimized for the x360 architecture, and MS doesnt care enough to create a port for us older users.
/eventually/.
i dont care about nice shiny graphics either; but i would be lying if i said that they didnt enhance an otherwise good experience. to me, the graphics are the icing. a solid involved game is its own reward, but now i need to upgrade again in order to enjoy that?
ill eventually buy a x360, but i need to wait and see more GR:aw and CoD-like titles to convince me first. im not a fan of having a $400 paperweight for my entertainment center until halo3 comes out
the funny thing is i own the original mutant storm for xbox. i downloaded it from their early incarnation of live arcade. it runs at high res too. this is regular xbox here mind you.
the let down is that it costs $400 to play a few titles that could very well run on the $150 xboxes we already own.
well considering that they sold around a million and a half in a two month xmas period and they went into production in august. i would say that the shortage seems suspicious to me as well.
/just slightly below/ demand until november, shower the market with consoles and then pray that my developers will have a big enough truck by then to throw at the ps3 launch juggernaut.
of the total sales, the x360 is not sold out in other regions in the same way it is sold out here in the US. and here, now you are able to find a few in stores; mainly core systems, but they are available...
theres no way to gauge how many systems would have sold if there were no shortage at all. if only three million people want x360s, but there are only 2 million x360s in the world, there will be a shortage. does that naturally mean that the x360 will sell 100 million units? of course not. theres very little that says that the x360 will sell at all once the early adopters have all been satiated. that responsibility relies on the developers ability to create exclusive content. then we shall see.
if i were MS, i would continue to keep production at a level
oh, and i would stop imagining that x360 owners are going to be absolutely loyal. people jump ship, and im not alone in that i plan to buy more than one next gen console this year. look at how many people sold their DS's for PSP's at launch, and vice versa.
i would like to see nintendo fare better this go around, but they really need to churn out some serious AAA titles quickly in order to capitalize on the early adopter market. due to the increased demands that games have required for the last two generations, excluding quality concerns, nintendo just couldnt keep up with sony in terms of overall title output. third party support is more important to a console than ever. since it takes longer than ever to gather and refine design and artistic elements for a game.
/every/ market and genre. theres a sony game for everyone.
as a gamer, i buy maybe up to five to ten titles a year, depending... i play even more than that. when i walk into a store ready to buy, the number of choices i have actually matter. i can not see myself walking into a store to buy a new title and only having four or so options. if im not a fan of the mario series, or if im tired of playing metroid, that leaves me much less choice in what to buy. thats the only reason i dont have all three consoles yet.
nintendo ruled america in the 8 and 16 bit era, but we gamers have grown up. nintendo has not. the major pull that made nintendo such a ruling force back in those days was the number of games available. that was due to the sheer amount of third party developers. now that crown rests on sonys head. THATS why they are the market leader. not because they have the best hardware [because they dont], not because they create the highest quality games [you have 4 clunkers for every solid game], but because sony and its third party armada cater to
i have the benefit of being an xbox and ps2 owner and also having played most of those games at some point, and i dont think its the same.
dead or alive has a nice wow factor, but it gets pretty old quick when you start playing more dedicated fighting games for the xbox or ps2. elder scrolls and KOTOR both benefit from being lateral PC ports. same with halflife2, doom3, and farcry if you want to be technical. [halflife2 being the better of all the latter, obviously]
all of the consoles have their strengths and weaknesses. but even i have to admit that the xbox is the most lacking when it comes to AAA exclusives. because if i wasnt too lazy to upgrade my pc, i would probably own most of my xbox library for pc instead.
i rememeber reading another one of the delay rumor reports here a few days ago, and the cause was due to a memo from one of the manufacturers of ps3 parts. they were supposed to start ramping up starting in june. so at best case scenario if they churn out 1,000,000 a month from june til november... thats easily five million units created by launch. that still wont be enough to meet xmas demand. i doubt they will be as strapped for units as the x360 though. microsoft made less than 2 million units in a five month period?!?!?
theres no way on earth that sony will be able to crank out enough ps3s to meet demand. no matter how streamlined their manufacturing is or no matter what major titles are released on competing consoles. same will probably go with the revolution.
speaking of which, when is that coming out anyways? =) sony let most of its plans out the bag, so now lets focus on the one question mark left.
teh arcade is a great draw, but the real success is geometry wars. its a runaway smash with alot of buzz. that and the lack of a wide variety of solid retail titles. buying a full version of a demo for a fraction of the cost of a regular x360 title [and happens to be more fun] is a no brainer. when the AAA x360 titles arrive, maybe thats when we should compare numbers.
basically people have a $400 machine and are dying to play something on it. no big deal. but for the time being, they need to give geometry wars most of the credit there.
add to that, halo2 and GTS:SA both came out around the same time. the launch of halo2 didnt have any effect whatsoever on the sales of GTA:SA.
people who are waiting on the ps3 will buy a ps3. if they already have a x360 they will pick up the ps3 and maybe halo3 instead of one of the soso ps3 launch titles.
but most likely, halo3 will not be ready in five months time. microsoft takes its time to hype a game of that magnitude. if halo3 is ready by november, i can guarantee it will be the buggiest, glitchiest piece of crap ever. expect halo3 to be released in 2007, in the same timeframe as the halo movie.
there will always be similar balance issues. case in point: if you have a precision optical mouse, chances are you will aim better and easier than a gamer using the standard clunky ps2 roller mouse that came with his dell.
/does/ matter for the most part. so does having at your disposal additional items such as variable turbo buttons and programmable buttons.
if you have a t1 line and a souped up gaming pc, you are more likely to be more responsive and appear to have better reflexes than a player playing on a shared dsl line and getting 15-30 frames per second on his two year old pc.
same in the console world. connection speed
i think that sony started off on the right foot with the ps2 accepting a standard usb keyboard/ mouse, but i think that many game should fully support such. thats in the hands of the developers; not sony.
sony is large enough to take the hit early on and recoup losses over the lifecycle of the ps3. as manufacturing prices go down. another thing to take into consideration is the fact that many of the same parts of the blu-ray drive that sony is sticking into the ps3 will be interchangable for use in their standalone blu ray players. so that is an additional savings for sony since they can use the same plant to supply the needs for several products.
given SOE's already large market of MMOs, i doubt that they would make the ps3 network incompatible with their larger franchises. i highly doubt it. if they spin it right they will probably use the ps3 to prop up some of their dwindling MMO franchises like star wars galaxies.
with ffxi square/ sony opted to allow pc and ps2 players to co-habitate, if the developer wishes to run their own server, why would sony outlaw an already accepted practice on their part?
blu ray or not, over the next five years 9 gigs probably will not be enough to hold a full game. some current-gen games flirted with the 9 gig barrier. its wishful thinking if they think games wont get any larger in the next 5years or so...
even if blu-ray fails as a media conduit, it will still accomplish its goal in giving developers more freedom and space. there no telling how far technology will advance in five years, or whether some new process will require more space.
good prediction. unfortunately, sony has been mum about the whole grid computing thing since before e3. what happened to the ability to combine cells to process info?
my apologies. it must be the original ps1 net yaroze im confusing it with then.
every first party release from every nintendo console...
i hope it handles gameboy, gba and ds games as well.