Sony unveils the PS3!!

[Mr. Lego-builder]

Sadly, Boody Jay, your money will have to wait until the predicted 2006 release of the PS3, while those Xbox 360 fans will have their dream console by the holiday season of this year.

[eDeevo]

Sadly, Boody Jay, your money will have to wait until the predicted 2006 release of the PS3, while those Xbox 360 fans will have their dream console by the holiday season of this year.

Sadly, you may not get any quality games for this new "dream console" this Christmas... So you may have to wait until Spring of 2006 as well (Halo 3's expected release date ;) ) ... and considering that it will only be reverse compatible for "top selling games", you will have to buy an entirely new game library... I still can't envision spending $300 on that at all... maybe that's just me...

Life is Good.

[Mr. Lego-builder]

Don't get me wrong... I don't like any gaming consoles of any kind (I'm just merely providing, or in this case conveying infomation, since I read somewhere that at E3 this year, the people behind Xbox said the predicted release date was indeed the 2005 holiday season; along with some new games, no word on the quality of these though).

I do, however believe in my trusty computer, but you can't really call that a gaming console, can you?

Besides, this argument is really steaming up, and I don't want to be part of it. Sorry.

[eDeevo]

My apologies if that sounded like an argument, that was not my intention... :$ It just seems like Microsoft is rushing the release of their new console for the Holiday season (to maximize profits on it at that highly profitable selling time :-D ) & it seems like a desperate attempt to capitalize on getting it out simply to beat the PS3's release... without any real games available for it yet & only promising that some 'should be available' around the same time as its release... sounds realllllllllllly desperate on Microsofts part as opposed to Sony, who announced many games that will be available with the PS3 when its released next year (even showing them at E3 last week)...

Life is Good.

[Mr. Lego-builder]

Yeah, you never know what happens or the amount of lies in store when the dreaded Microsoft company takes the stand. *wacko*

And don't worry, ed_dotcom, I didn't say what I said because of what you said.

[eDeevo]

Yeah, you never know what happens or the amount of lies in store when the dreaded Microsoft company takes the stand. *wacko*

I couldn't agree more :-D

Life is Good.

[Mister Phes]

Second, the XBox is basically a computer that's had barriers put on it so it can only do a few things, namely gaming. While this is in theory a good idea, the computer industry itself hasn't really evolved exponentially. I don't expect the XBox to have better graphics than the modern computer. The PS3, on the other hand, is evolving on its own. It's an estimate of two times as powerful as the XBox 360, and the graphics are so realistic that for a while there was a protest of people saying that they couldn't be real-time (real gaming), but rather had to be a staged graphics video. Sony confirmed that it WAS real-time. That's pretty damn impressive.

So, my money's on the PS3.

I heard on the radio XboX has evovled quite nicely... Since I was half asleep I don't remember exactly what was said but I remember some stats...

512MB RAM

20GB Hard disk

30 times more powerful than the current XboX

Wireless controllers

High Definition Cinema Quality real time video

Cross compatibility with existing Xbox games

Stuff like that...

[Darth_Ewok]

Sadly, Boody Jay, your money will have to wait until the predicted 2006 release of the PS3, while those Xbox 360 fans will have their dream console by the holiday season of this year.

Sadly, you may not get any quality games for this new "dream console" this Christmas... So you may have to wait until Spring of 2006 as well (Halo 3's expected release date ;) ) ... and considering that it will only be reverse compatible for "top selling games", you will have to buy an entirely new game library... I still can't envision spending $300 on that at all... maybe that's just me...

Life is Good.

Well at least we get The elder scrolls 4: oblivion. That's going to be awesome! :)

And it depends on what microsoft meant when they said "top selling games" it might be some of the really popular ones, all of them, or all the "only on Xbox" titles. only the future will tell...

[Akkhraziel]

A few reasons. For one, the PS2 was ahead of its time when it was released two years before the XBox. Surely, five and a half years later, it's improved exponentially. The XBox, on the other hand, has had three and a half years to develop. I don't doubt the quality of either system - it's simply an issue of time available.

Second, the XBox is basically a computer that's had barriers put on it so it can only do a few things, namely gaming. While this is in theory a good idea, the computer industry itself hasn't really evolved exponentially. I don't expect the XBox to have better graphics than the modern computer. The PS3, on the other hand, is evolving on its own. It's an estimate of two times as powerful as the XBox 360, and the graphics are so realistic that for a while there was a protest of people saying that they couldn't be real-time (real gaming), but rather had to be a staged graphics video. Sony confirmed that it WAS real-time. That's pretty damn impressive.

So, my money's on the PS3.

Assuming the Cell chip is all its cracked up to be (rumors have its not even in production, yet). Personally, I think the PS3 is going to be a great system, though I think "two times as powerful as the Xbox 360" is a bit of a stretch. Then again, its been awhile since I've looked at the projected hardware lists, who knows, it might very well be.

The key for all the companies will be in their follow through, both in games and how the products are handled. Given that I'm sending Sony back my PSP (a wonderful system, but as aforementioned, this is the third one with dead pixels) I am actually slightly concerned with quality control. Given the utter mismanagement of SW Galaxies (long story, check the Penny Arcade archive) and the fubar with FFXI (the new slim line PS2 can't play it) I hope that Sony dosen't proceed with...well, mistakes. The more mistakes it makes, the closer the competition gets. Again, while competition is healthy, and leads to overall better games, its bad for any company to just assume people are going to want to buy its product. Nintendo would probably have a lot to say about that particular market problem.

Attempting to wrap this up slightly, I want all three next gen consoles to be close in price and quality. Why ? Becasue I don't beleive that any of the three companies right now shuold be the sole console on the market. As the above would indicate, I don't have that much faith in Sony as a company to manage such a thing. I'm not even going to waste time on how Microsoft having a monopoly on consoles would be unhealthy, and Nintendo has demonstrated in the past that its gets complacent when its ahead.

One other thing that bears mentioning, looking at consoles like this, is that in two cases (the Revolution and the PS3) there is a lot of time between now and their release. When there was this much time before the PSP's release, rumors that it could play PS2 games where flying around, and a lot of other speculation as to what the handheld system was going to be able to do. In the end, we got a great system, but it wasn't exactly like it had first been anticipated. That becasue plans, parts availiability, and profit margins all change. Which is a pleasant way of saying that right now, there is a very good chance that little is set in stone, and what you may be told is the hardware right now for the PS3 or Revolution might very well change before you get the final product (on that note, I've heard two different processor speeds for the PS3, and I have no idea which one is going to be genuine.) In the end, though, as long as all three products are competitve, it will probably be a great time to be a gamer.

Akkh

[Mister Phes]

Assuming the Cell chip is all its cracked up to be (rumors have its not even in production, yet). Personally, I think the PS3 is going to be a great system, though I think "two times as powerful as the Xbox 360" is a bit of a stretch. Then again, its been awhile since I've looked at the projected hardware lists, who knows, it might very well be.

We don't know what's fact and what's hype at the moment... So it be too early to be guessing which one will be the best.

[eDeevo]

And it depends on what microsoft meant when they said "top selling games" it might be some of the really popular ones, all of them, or all the "only on Xbox" titles. only the future will tell...

I know people want to remain positive about this, but in my experience, if a business is vague in their description of something like this, they are doing so to hide something |-/ . Doesn't it seem suspicious that they didn't just announce that ALL XBox games would be playable on the 360? It seems that Microsoft panicked when they realized that not doing so would cause them to lose business to Sony (who does offer full reverse compatibility)... perhaps it wasn't in the works originally for Microsoft to make it fully reverse compatible, but now it has been realized that it is necessary & it will be so before the release of the 360, although within the time frame they are looking to release it, it seems 'iffy'... 8-|

Akkhraziel, contrary to where it seems my allegiance to a console lies, I am a strong proponent of having more than one around (not just because I have all three ;) ). You are right that competing businesses will essentially guarantee benefits in many ways to us gamers... which is very good ;)

Also it seems, from the specs alone on the different systems, that the Nintendo Revolution will be cheaper in price than the other consoles, which will probably have me buying that system first ;)

Life is Good.

[Mister Phes]

Being positive? That only leads to greater disappointment. If ya have the worst outlook on everything you're constantly impressed by how good things actually are. The pessimistic perspective rules!

[Jipay]

I prefer Nintendo on this one. Nintendo gaming systems are always less powerfull but their games are also always more awesome. it's also no a shot-shot and fight-fight gaming system.

As for the PS3 and the Xbox2, people should get a good PC instead. It's almost the same but with a computer, you can do what you want.

[Akkhraziel]

in my experience, if a business is vague in their description of something like this, they are doing so to hide something |-/ . Doesn't it seem suspicious that they didn't just announce that ALL XBox games would be playable on the 360? It seems that Microsoft panicked when they realized that not doing so would cause them to lose business to Sony (who does offer full reverse compatibility)... perhaps it wasn't in the works originally for Microsoft to make it fully reverse compatible, but now it has been realized that it is necessary & it will be so before the release of the 360, although within the time frame they are looking to release it, it seems 'iffy'... 8-|

This is in contrast with Sony, who said that the PS2 would be fully reverse compatible, and then it wasn't, and many DVD's it would not recognize, either. This was, most likely due to a simple oversight, but then it becomes a matter of personal preference, would you perfer that a company hedge its statements and wait till it knows better, or go ahead and make a definitve stance and then turn out to be wrong.

Now, on the other hand, I didn't own any of the games the PS2 wasn't compatible with, but I seem to remember a list compiled somewhere out in the internet on what games didn't waork, as well as what Movies had problems.

I'm still wondering how much more the next gen of games is going to run. I've heard $60 bandied about.

Akkh

[Mister Phes]

As for the PS3 and the Xbox2, people should get a good PC instead. It's almost the same but with a computer, you can do what you want.

Yes, this is very true. Then you can emulate the games on all the consoles ever created.

[eDeevo]

It's true that if the consoles keep veering towards "multi-use", you would be better off buying a computer... I don't know if the gaming companies realize that there are many people out there (myself included) that just want to play games on a gaming system... I don't care for e-mail, internet, etc...

& Akkhraziel, I don't really understand what you are trying to say about Sony being wrong (about reverse compatibility), I own one of the first line of Playstation 2s (bought in January 2001) & I have never come across a game or DVD that it has had problems reading... & I have played over 200 games & at least 300 DVDs on the sucker since then & it's still going strong 8-| ...

Life is Good.

[Jipay]

That's why I love nintendo so much : they make gaming machines, not dvdplayers-microwaves-fridge-pc-printer ones

[Mister Phes]

I wouldn't mind a gaming machine, DVD player, microwaves, fridge, pc and printer all in one. And could we throw in TV tuning capability and VHS player as well? It would take up less space and I'd have more room for LEGO.

[Wolf04]

Final PS3 more powerful than E3 demo?

[uPDATE] Japanese site says final Cell CPU will run 25 percent faster than demo machine; first PS3 dev kit spotted.

Back at Sony's PlayStation 3 presentation at E3, the company and its publishers showed off a number of demos and presentations, some of which were running in real time on a developer's prototype machine. Naturally, one of the questions that was raised by the audience was whether the actual console--which hits stores in spring 2006--would be able to run its games with as much graphical integrity. The answer is yes, according to Web site ITmedia, which reports that the finalized PS3 will be exceedingly more powerful than its current developer's machine.

[uPDATE] ITmedia revealed that the Cell chip used in Sony's PS3 developer's kit is running at only 2.4GHz, just 75 percent of the machine's final spec of 3.2GHz. The report also reconfirms that the graphics processor unit used in the E3 machine was not the RSX chip that will be used in the final product but is another Nvidia GPU, possibly the just-announced GeForce 7800 GTX. The article also appears to be the source of an unconfirmed (but convincing) image of a PlayStation 3 dev kit, the first such picture to be made public.

While the exact technical specifications of the GPU remain a secret, ITmedia reports that it uses the PCI Express bus instead of the PS3's Redwood bus interface licensed from Rambus.

Check:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/22/ne...ws_6128031.html

for the picture and more information.

[Akkhraziel]

Excellent.

Much as anticipated, as we get closer to the acutal launches, we'll start geting better information. Its goin to be a great year for video games.

Akkh