The Next Generation Consoles

[Mithrandir]

Which one are you guys and gals looking at purchasing?

I loved my Xbox, but the PS3 is looking damn near incredible. Plus, Sony has apparently ramped up their production to try and beat the Xbox 360 to the market (when they were originally going to hit the market well after the Xbox 360 did). The PS3 is a friggin beast, but the Xbox 360 is no pushover either. The PS3 being listed at 4*(2.8 tflops per Cell) is kinda misleading, since the CPU is "only" listed at 218 gflops and then they added that to the 1.8 tflops for the GPU.

Perfect Dark Zero looks awesome though, plus Halo 3 of course, and hopefully they'll start actually releasing some decent non-BioWare RPGs with Sakaguchi in the stables. The state of Xbox 360 backward compatibility looks very lame. At first it sounded like they were just going to write an emulator for major Xbox games (which isn't a perfect solution either), but the prospect of having to buy "recompiled" versions of games I already own certainly does not make my frown turn upside down. Hopefully they'll just have downloadable version available through Xbox Live. That wouldn't be too bad.

Also, Blu-ray (the PS3 format) just blows HD-DVD (the Xbox 360 format) out of the water. (See: Blu-ray and HD-DVD) It will be interesting to see what the developers do with the over 2x more storage space on the Blu-ray disks.

The Revolution is just looking horrible right now. The only bright spot seems to be downloadable SNES games and an online Super Smash Bros. I also read that all the Revolution controllers are going to be wireless, but that link has since been lost to the murky depths of my history. An interview with Miyamoto made it seem like Nintendo is completely out of touch with reality at the moment. They have a very "head in the sand" approach.

My one major gripe though: what's with the horrible looking controllers?

PS3 controller


Xbox 360 controller


How many years has it been... and they still can't make a decent controller. Especially the PS3 one, sweet Jeebus. I guess it's a positive that if you throw the controller it'll return to your hand, but I'll be damned if that is comfortable.

Xbox 360 starting at $300-350 and PS3 $400-450 seems to be the initial implications. PS3 is opening in Japan at 50,000 yen ($465 US).

In the end, I'm probably going to stick with the Xbox 360 - but that PS3 is sick. Might have to bite the bullet and get both :)

Some videos of the PS3 in action:
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748475/vids_1.html
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748480/vids_1.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=1683

The Killzone movie is just absolutely insane. That's *in-game* footage. I'm sure they've polished it up a bit (it was a presentation and not playable), but still... wow.


Anyone have any more links to share? Been trying to absorb as much info on the next gen consoles as possible.

[Archon_Wing]

Ack pricing... :(
The controller looks like a good choice for a weapon.

[Doc]

Ack pricing... :(
The controller looks like a good choice for a weapon.
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That is no mere weapon n00b!

That is a Klingon bat'leth. And it will pWnZ0r u.

Play for HONOUR! GRRRRRR!

[Guest]

Im thinking Xbox 3

I havent had a consol since SNES, but Xbox3 with Xbox live might be what I want. If my brother also buys one thats will be the deciding factor.

[Occhidiangela]

Which one are you guys and gals looking at purchasing?[right][snapback]77950[/snapback][/right]

A new set of Hogan irons.

Occhi

[jahcs]

I won't be getting either one. My next big money pit will be a built-by-my-own-hands computer.

As the console market keeps pushing I hope computer technology pushes back and we get all kinds of neat advancements, like this: Physics Processor

[Rinnhart]

The first Killzone looked good.

It was still a piece of #$%&. Extremely buggy, bad controls, boring weapons, and a really terrible AI.

And whoever does their writing needs to be shot.

[Munkay]

Articles keep popping up on Google News, from now on I'll try to post them in here as I read them.

First things first, I own a gamecube (yes, I got suckered into buying it when it first came out, with the hope of Zelda games, Super Smash Brothers, etc... too bad I ONLY got Windwaker and SSBMelee out of it. Pfft) and have subverted the urge to buy an xbox.

My brother picked up a used one, threw in a mod chip, threw in a bigger HD, and we've been playing Halo and Halo II through Kai ever since (its a free online service like X-Box live). I was avidly against an microsquish console at the start, but I must admit xbox has won me over. PS2 may have more titles, but I feel xbox has won the battle in the long run.

So needless to say, I'm giddy about Xbox360. But the killzone video was INCREDIBLE. At the end of the day, I'm going to go with the best multiplayer console (that was the original reason for buying GCube).

But I'll be waiting out on this one, waiting to snag a used xbox360 or used ps3. Why? By then hopefully mod chips and cracks will be out :P

On the note of formatting, last month I read an article about BD and HdDVD. At that point it was still 50gig vs. 30gig, not 100 vs. 50. Oh how quickly the make new layers :P . A month ago the article said they were meeting in a few days to condense formats (like the article you linked). Too bad it hasn't happened yet, so I'm a bit skeptical about it happening "possibly in a week."

Happy you started this thread Mithy, I was considering making one myself last night.

Cheers,

Munk

[Mithrandir]

http://media.xbox.gamespy.com/media/741/...ids_1.html

The PGR3 trailer on Gamespy. Kinda disappointed that there's no gameplay footage but... meh. I'm not a big racing fan anyway.

http://www.gamespot.com/x360/action/gearsofwar/

Gears of War movie. Mostly cinema but a little bit of gameplay at the end. The movie quality was kinda crappy, but it looks like it could be interesting - there seems to be a big buzz about this game.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/controll...level1=enushome

All controllers come with wireless standard and there's a power button right on the controller? Awesome.

[Quark]

My brother picked up a used one, threw in a mod chip, threw in a bigger HD, and we've been playing Halo and Halo II through Kai ever since (its a free online service like X-Box live).  I was avidly against an microsquish console at the start, but I must admit xbox has won me over.  PS2 may have more titles, but I feel xbox has won the battle in the long run.

I like the PS2 game selection better than Xbox. Not quantity, but style. Xbox is notoriously short on RPGs. Anyone who responds with Fable and Jade Empire are kidding themselves, too. Fable was not as epic as it was boring, and Jade Empire is just one game.

On the note of formatting, last month I read an article about BD and HdDVD.  At that point it was still 50gig vs. 30gig, not 100 vs. 50.  Oh how quickly the make new layers  :P .  A month ago the article said they were meeting in a few days to condense formats (like the article you linked).  Too bad it hasn't happened yet, so I'm a bit skeptical about it happening "possibly in a week."

I thought a whole 2 days after the article saying they were gonna collaborate, there was statements by both Philips and Sony saying they were not ready to work together? The whole story was bunk to begin with.

My final selection won't be based off the console's capabilities, it'll be the play selection again. If the companies I favor choose Xbox 360, I'll grab that. If not, it's still Sony for me.

[Alarick]

I like the PS2 game selection better than Xbox.  Not quantity, but style.  Xbox is notoriously short on RPGs.  Anyone who responds with Fable and Jade Empire are kidding themselves, too.  Fable was not as epic as it was boring, and Jade Empire is just one game.

Yeam Xbox was very short on RPGs, and many people wanted the traditional Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy and such, and Xbox had none of these. It looks like the coming generation will have more RPGs, and Japanese developer support in general, but I think PS3 will still be the RPG console in general.

I thought a whole 2 days after the article saying they were gonna collaborate, there was statements by both Philips and Sony saying they were not ready to work together?  The whole story was bunk to begin with.

They did admit to wanting to work together to avoid another VHS vs. Betamax situation. However, they immediately were arguing over what base hardware to use on the new DVDs, and I believe that's where it currently stands. I think they are attempting to work together, but we all know how well that works by looking at bargaining between groups *cough* NHL *cough*

My final selection won't be based off the console's capabilities, it'll be the play selection again.  If the companies I favor choose Xbox 360, I'll grab that.  If not, it's still Sony for me.
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Personally, I think I'm going to go with the Xbox360, but part of that is the games I already have working on it, and some of the games coming are ones that I like.

I think this generation will certainly be a software race. All the systems are about the same graphically (at least for the start of games coming out), so what will matter in the end is the games.

[Alarick]

I loved my Xbox, but the PS3 is looking damn near incredible. Plus, Sony has apparently ramped up their production to try and beat the Xbox 360 to the market (when they were originally going to hit the market well after the Xbox 360 did).

Where did you see this info? Last I've heard, there's no way that PS3 is coming out this year, and Xbox is definitely going to be out this winter according to many official sources. I've been keeping up with things as best I can, and I have yet to see any indications that PS3 will be out in 2005 at all.

The PS3 is a friggin beast, but the Xbox 360 is no pushover either. The PS3 being listed at 4*(2.8 tflops per Cell) is kinda misleading, since the CPU is "only" listed at 218 gflops and then they added that to the 1.8 tflops for the GPU.

I think your numbers a bit off. From what I can gather, the total Operations per second for the Cell processor is 2.18 Tflops. Again, this may be misinterpreting that available data, but I'm pretty sure the numbers are based on total performance for all of the sub-processors on the Cell chip.

Perfect Dark Zero looks awesome though, plus Halo 3 of course, and hopefully they'll start actually releasing some decent non-BioWare RPGs with Sakaguchi in the stables. The state of Xbox 360 backward compatibility looks very lame. At first it sounded like they were just going to write an emulator for major Xbox games (which isn't a perfect solution either), but the prospect of having to buy "recompiled" versions of games I already own certainly does not make my frown turn upside down. Hopefully they'll just have downloadable version available through Xbox Live. That wouldn't be too bad.

Yea, I wasn't sure what the backwards-compatability statement meant, either. It was pointed out to me a moment ago that they confirmed that at launch, only a select number of games will be able to be played. They want to get it to all games, but that seems like it will be a big issue to deal with compared to the other consoles having full access to the game library of the previous consoles. Shame.

Also, Blu-ray (the PS3 format) just blows HD-DVD (the Xbox 360 format) out of the water. (See: Blu-ray and HD-DVD) It will be interesting to see what the developers do with the over 2x more storage space on the Blu-ray disks.

Actually, Xbox360 is using normal DVDs, and not HD-DVDs. It's mostly for cost, as far as I can tell. The only real difference is capacity, and only a few games required more than one DVD for an entire game, so the increased cost of using a state-of-the-art disc drive may not be worth it at all.

Xbox 360 starting at $300-350 and PS3 $400-450 seems to be the initial implications.  PS3 is opening in Japan at 50,000 yen ($465 US).

In the end, I'm probably going to stick with the Xbox 360 - but that PS3 is sick. Might have to bite the bullet and get both :)

Pricing is going to be a huge issue. Last article I saw said that Sony is attempting to be nuder the $500 mark for PS3. I doubt Xbox360 will be over the $300 mark that the Xbox started at, and if these prices are accurate, it will be a factor for many.

Some videos of the PS3 in action:
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748475/vids_1.html
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748480/vids_1.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=1683

The Killzone movie is just absolutely insane. That's *in-game* footage. I'm sure they've polished it up a bit (it was a presentation and not playable), but still... wow.
Anyone have any more links to share? Been trying to absorb as much info on the next gen consoles as possible.
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Screenshots mean little anymore. Frequently, the game will look great in screenshots, then play like crap for other video-related issues. videos are quickly becoming the only realy way to tell how "nice" a game looks.

Another thing to think of is that every Xbox360 game being shown is not running at 100% of the processing power of the final system. They're all being played on Alpha test systems, and the typical guess is that these systems run at about 30-33% of the final power of the system. They also don't have access to full screen AA, and have frame-rate issues.
Taking all of it into account, I've been more impressed at the Xbox360 games shown so far. Mostly, I like the fact that most of them being shown are actual games and not simply tech demos. I don't think tech demos of any kind, even those done "in engine" show the true result of games. Usually, tech demos tend to look much nicer than the engine produces in the end. At least, that's the way I've seen it in the past.


P.S. I will be sorely pissed if "Best Game of E3" goes to a tech demo again like it did for Doom 3. Give the award to an actual game!

[Raelynn]

The big point I have to make about the system comparisons has to do with two points:

1. PS3 was running primarily tech demos. As others had put it, Sony did the same thing with the PS2 and those looked great. Look how little came out that looked nearly comparable.

2. The Xbox360 hardware is currently an alpha build, running at an estimated 25-30% power. Rare said that if the system matches up to the power that Microsoft claims it (and of course it's still an if), they can push 4000-9000 characters on the screen at the same time.

A lot of people were disappointed with the Xbox360 showing. I felt that considering they showed a lot of actual games, compared to just trailers or prerenders (though it's getting much harder to tell the difference), it says a lot for the system. The MGS3 teaser to me looked like something from the PS2.

I'll probably try and get both, depending on what games come out for each system. I'm seeing game ideas I really enjoyed on the Xbox, such as PGR, top spin, and halo, and also some other really good looking games like gears of war, kameo, perfect dark zero, full auto, test drive unlimited, etc.

Other big developers that didn't do much with Xbox (Square Enix, Rockstar, etc.) are also starting to work their way over which is making the system look slightly better as well.

[Quark]

The big point I have to make about the system comparisons has to do with two points:

1. PS3 was running primarily tech demos.  As others had put it, Sony did the same thing with the PS2 and those looked great.  Look how little came out that looked nearly comparable.

Yeah, they looked great back when the tech demos were released. Time changes perspective on that, and you can't tell me graphics didn't improve as developers have gotten better. PS2 is no Xbox, mainly because of the times they were released, but the Xenosaga series is a great example of how good graphics can be real time on a PS2.

2. The Xbox360 hardware is currently an alpha build, running at an estimated 25-30% power.  Rare said that if the system matches up to the power that Microsoft claims it (and of course it's still an if), they can push 4000-9000 characters on the screen at the same time.

I'm sorry, but if it's a hardware limitation that's running at "25-30%" capability 6 months before launch, this system will never reach "100%".

We can talk about the fact that the Xbox 360 has 3 cores, each of which can handle 2 threads, for 6 total thread. The PS3 has 1 core, but the core offloads work to 7 units (there is an 8th there - for redunancy if one fails, apparantly) individually. All these threads are great in theory, but I'd like to see a game handle them in practice. There's only so much work a processor can do before it's stuck waiting for results. How often are those 6 or 7 threads actually going to be available for use? How will the compilation or programming to go to make sure threadsafe calculations are actually sent to a seperate line? The Gamespot article says: "Microsoft has a lot of experience with multithreaded applications, and the company is confident that developing on the processor won't be a problem." Too bad that says nothing whatsoever about performance. Making a program threadsafe is not the same as making it work well with threads for speed.

Threadsafe programming, at the basic levels, is probably twice as hard as programming where you don't have to worry about it. Once the basic levels are in, there's no real difference. So if the SDKs get it right, programmers shouldn't have to worry about being threadsafe for these consoles. But how much more time needs to be spent to make sure cores aren't wasted?

Then there's another problem entirely. Previews everywhere are talking about how great of an advancement these processors for these systems are. Then you look at the graphics chips descriptions, and it basically says "more pipes, more transistors, more MHz." There's no true innovation going on in the graphics, and graphics at the core of the argument. Not that the extra power won't help, the early screenshots prove it will, but people keep skipping over the graphics chips and those are what really matters here.

I haven't really looked at teasers yet, as I said I care more about the games then how they look. Just some thoughts to ponder when the fight continues for "this system's faster! no this one is!"

[Rhydderch Hael]

A new set of Hogan irons.

Occhi
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Slicing the golf ball— that's a good thing, right? The iron I'm getting would do the job quite nicely.

A Type XVIIIa longsword, hollow-ground diamond cross-section, marketed under the model name of 'Regent' by Albion Armorers of New Glarus, Wisconsin.

I'm— enlisting into the Army of Westmarch.

[Doc]

I don't have the funds to buy a new console.

Right now I am bleeding money trying to restore a 90 calibre black powder revolving pistol.

That's right. I said 90 calibre. It's an odd 4 shot. Never seen anything like it. I am not even totally sure who made it. Might be a custom manufactured piece. It has bad rust, and the grips, which were wood at one time, are completely rotted and splintered.

I have fired an 80 calibre single shot 'blunderbuss' pirate type pistol... I am feeling a bit apprehensive firing a 90. That's a BIG FARKING GUN incase you don't realize how big something like that is. Going to have to make a custom mold to drop the bullets too.

I may never be able to ever say these words ever again in my lifetime, but the 90 makes the Smith & Wesson 500 look... tiny. Looks like a kid's capgun toy. By comparison, the 90 is comically huge... It's the sort of gun that would make Roland the Gunslinger pause, take of his hat, and weep.

It's an odd bird though. Only 4 shots, but with such huge bullets, I can see why... After the first shot, I reckon most everybody would be squatting and hunkering down to clean crap out of their britches and boots.

I should have it done by fall. :D

[DeeBye]

Right now I am bleeding money trying to restore a 90 calibre black powder revolving pistol.
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How did this thread turn into a gun thing? Oh well, I shall take this opportunity to ask a question.

I once watched a show about the weaponry used in Ye Olden Days. They were talking about muskets. They said that muskets were pretty devastating due to the fact that they launched a relatively slow-moving projectile. It was enough to enter a body, but not enough to exit. The projectile tended to make some pretty severe turns when it hit a human body based on the density of the flesh it encountered. If you were shot in the shoulder, the musket shell could sort of bounce around and end up in your heart.

Is this true or was that show just feeding me a line of BS? Ever since I watched that show I am more afraid of being shot with a musket than I am of being shot with a high-powered sniper rifle.

[Doc]

How did this thread turn into a gun thing?  Oh well, I shall take this opportunity to ask a question.

I once watched a show about the weaponry used in Ye Olden Days.  They were talking about muskets.  They said that muskets were pretty devastating due to the fact that they launched a relatively slow-moving projectile.  It was enough to enter a body, but not enough to exit.  The projectile tended to make some pretty severe turns when it hit a human body based on the density of the flesh it encountered.  If you were shot in the shoulder, the musket shell could sort of bounce around and end up in your heart.

Is this true or was that show just feeding me a line of BS?  Ever since I watched that show I am more afraid of being shot with a musket than I am of being shot with a high-powered sniper rifle.
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Oh that's totally true.

Under battle conditions, when they dropped balls, er, that sounds so sexual, but when they pressed musket balls in the molds they often didn't wait for them to cool properly and would flop them out someplace. So they would wind up sort of egg shaped. Now, take a heavy high grain lead slug that is soft. Almost putty like. You could pinch a musketball with your fingers some times, or push your fingernail into it. Take this wad of lead egg shaped putty and fire it at low velocity. In the air, it wobbles a bit. Depending on the lead and the flash heat of the shot, it might actually start to spread a bit in the air. So you have this blob of lead that is starting to expand and go from egg shaped to tear shaped slamming into a human body at low speed. It would enter the gut, spread out ever more, slam into the skin of your back, which would act like a net or a landing pad, the skin would catch it, stretch way out, and then snap back into place launching the ball through your body in all sorts of ways only a physics professor would understand. It might bounce up, and then bounce off of your rib. It might shatter... Forming shrapnel bouncing in several directions, or, it might spread out like a lead pancake inside of your body doing disgusting things as it bounced around using your guts like a trampoline.

In Washington state I went black powder hunting with a Hawkins 80 calibre musket. I shot an elk. The bullet caught him from the side, just behind his front leg. It was a good clean lethal shot. Elk went down. I cut his throat to make sure his suffering had ended. We found the slug when we were butchering the beast all the way back in his rump, lodged in the somewhat splintered remains of his pelvis. Lots of tumble damage. Mind you, this is an ELK. That's a big powerful animal. For a human, it could, and would, be a lot worse. And Hawkins rifles were common arms for all sorts of armies and malitias long ago.

[Archon_Wing]

I won't be getting either one.  My next big money pit will be a built-by-my-own-hands computer.

As the console market keeps pushing I hope computer technology pushes back and we get all kinds of neat advancements, like this: Physics Processor
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That's one of the things that hold me back from consoles --computers. (My last console was a SNES) It seems like a computer is generally better for gaming needs. Sure computer hardware gets obsolete, but game consoles do as well. The only edge consoles have is that they are cheaper and that seems to be eroding away while you can get good computers for lower and lower prices. Computers just seem to have too much more functionality and the indivudual games get cheaper so that can matter if one wants a large game library. And with the exception of some old DOS games, backwards compatiblity isn't really that big of an issue. Although those few cases where games don't work do cause a bit of grief. :)

Another problem is that recent games don't seem to intrest me. Too much fluff and no substance. (Let's remake Pac-man but with state-of-the art graphics!) Maybe I'm just a backwards gamer.

[[wcip]Angel]

I'll be going for a Playstation 3. I'm a huge fan of their games:
* Final Fantasy
* Gran Turismo
* Resident Evil
* Silent Hill
* Metal Gear Solid

The only game I would consider buying for the X-box is The Elderscrolls 4: Oblivion, but that game will also be released on PC and most likely PS3 as well, so there is really no point in investing money in an X-box2.

I'm not a big fan of the new controller for the PS3. The one for the PS2 was perfect, in my opinion, and there really wasn't room - or need - for improvement. As far as all the tecnical yohaa goes: screw it. Both Gamecube and X-box have superior hardware than the Playstation2, and developers still can't make better games for Nintendo's and Microsoft's systems than the ones on Playstation2. (In my not-so humble opinion of course.)

I do own a Gamecube, though. I needed to buy one when Resident Evil Remake and RE Zero were released on another system than Playstation.

As for the Killzone-trailer. Sure, it looked nice, but it also looked scripted as hell. No thank you!

Recommended trailers:
* Oblivion --> http://www.gamershell.com/download_9197.shtml
* Final Fantasy - Advent Children - http://www.gamespot.com/psp/rpg/finalfanta...advent+children
* Final Fantasy VII - remake (!!) - http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/finalfan...media.html
* Final Fantasy XII http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/finalfanta...q=Final+Fantasy
* Gran Turismo - http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/driving/gran...media.html
* Metal Gear Solid 4 (made using PS2 graphics though.) - http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/adventure/meta...lid4/media.html