Playstation 3 a bargain?

[Meshugger]

BREAKING NEWS! NEW GT:HD FOOTAGE LEAKED TO YOUTUBE!

NEXT-GEN GAMING BEGINS WHEN SONY SAYS SO!

 

Movie!

 

Screenshot!

 

 

Looks a little too good to be ingame imo.

[Tale]

BREAKING NEWS! NEW GT:HD FOOTAGE LEAKED TO YOUTUBE!

NEXT-GEN GAMING BEGINS WHEN SONY SAYS SO!

 

Movie!

 

Screenshot!

 

 

Looks a little too good to be ingame imo.

Initial impression of screenshot = shenanigans. More to follow.

 

After viewing the video, I caught the title as "GTHD Concept Digest." I'm always wary of concept videos.

Edited December 21, 2006 by Tale

[mkreku]

I think the importance of backwards compatibility kind of speaks for itself this generation. Why else would every console manufacturer have backwards compatibility as a major selling point? I mean, both Nintendo and Sony have bragged about their deals with publishers for older titles to become available for their systems. Microsoft are (slowly) trying to increase the backwards compatibility with their older system while at the same time offering old retro games on their Live Arcade service.

 

They wouldn't bother unless they figured that's what the market demands.

[Sand]

Well, there seems to a a load of GT videos on the link. It looks pretty... well... realistic.

[alanschu]

It's not "the end of the day" but it's still far more than nostalgia.  Progress is an illusion.  A game from several years back can still be as good as any game released today.  Replays be damned.  Counter-Strike, a 6 year old game, is still the number 1 online action game and stands as a testament to older games lasting value even in the mainstream.  Trivialization of the value of old games is an illusion.  One we accept for some reason I won't even try to explain here.  The IE engine on which Baldur's Gate is built still has a loyal following.  You can see many of these people in related forums and even in the signatures of people in this forum.  They're not just in it for nostalgia.

 

Loyal followings are nice and all. There's a lot of people that still play MUDs with ASCII text as well. As for Counterstrike, 6 years can be argued to not really be all that old, especially seeing as the game still runs natively on modern platforms. You'd be better served to use Starcraft as your example, which is still getting patched by Blizzard 8 years after its release. I won't dispute that a Multiplayer game will differ with its longevity than a single player game.

 

As for it not being nostalgia, would people go out and buy a game that was a clone of say Mario 3, or Mario 64? From graphical quality to gameplay, it's as similar as it can get without just copying the story. Would the next Final Fantasy game still sell just as well if it looked and played similar to Final Fantasy 7? It probably would because of the franchise, but what if it wasn't called Final Fantasy.

 

I will agree that progress has become somewhat of an illusion, though only recently. This is in part due to the fact that developing games is insanely expensive.

 

And please, explain the trivilization. Since you brought it up, you might as well try explaining it.

 

And even if it is just nostalgia, think of it as never being able to watch Star Wars again.  That wouldn't be "the end of the day" but it should never be discarded and considered only fluff.

 

Unless they keep moving Star Wars to new media types, it'll probably happen. Besides, I'm not sure if I still agree. All of my old consoles still work (including the 16 year old NES). If I want to go and play FF7, I can load up my PSX (which I just tested, and it still works). Yes, you'll get some people who's hardware has died out on them. But you'll find the same for your favourite movie that's only on VHS for instance.

 

 

Personally, I think the ideal solution to the problem is rereleasing.  Many of these games could be reworked and resold and I firmly believe they would sell well.  Though I have no evidence to back that up.  While that didn't entirely work for Star Wars, I imagine it can be done with better restraint to changing the core.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Games are coded for the specific hardware (or at least, Operating System). Rereleasing them is probably quite a bit more time consuming than rereleasing a video, especially since newer games have many more lines of code. It still happens on occasion though. The Sierra "Quest" games all just got rereleased. I never did play the King's Quest games so maybe I'll pick that one up. I'd be surprised if they are flying off the shelf as fast as Company of Heroes though. I know I won't be getting the Police Quest box set, as I've already beaten those games on numerous occasions.

 

On the other hand, a game like Sid Meier's pirates did do fairly well as a rerelease, and the original Pirates was a popular game from my estimation. It also offers a game experience that is not directed soley by a story, which I think would help. Though I wonder if it would have done as well if they straight up rereleased it in its original form, rather than essentially making a new game based on the original premise.

 

 

I think the importance of backwards compatibility kind of speaks for itself this generation. Why else would every console manufacturer have backwards compatibility as a major selling point? I mean, both Nintendo and Sony have bragged about their deals with publishers for older titles to become available for their systems. Microsoft are (slowly) trying to increase the backwards compatibility with their older system while at the same time offering old retro games on their Live Arcade service.

 

They wouldn't bother unless they figured that's what the market demands.

 

This is a good point. I have sort have always interpretted it as Company X seeing that Company Y is offering it, so Company X will be damned if they're going to be caught not offering a similar feature, but that could just be me being cynical.

 

At the same time though, if backwards compatibility was so important, I'd think that Microsoft would have made a bigger push to make sure more games were backwards compatible. Doesn't the PS3 have backwards compatibility issues as well?

 

Furthermore, we as gamers always insist how future graphical improvements don't mean as much as gameplay improvements, yet the focus from all but one of the console developers is still heavily slanted towards graphics.

Edited December 21, 2006 by alanschu

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Doesn't the PS3 have backwards compatibility issues as well?

 

One might call exploding PS2 disks an "issue"... "

[thepixiesrock]

I highly doubt game disks are exploding. I'd be willing to bet money that the disks aren't exploding.

[jaguars4ever]

Maybe he forgot to post-pend -ers to game and accidentally substituted "c" for "s" (it's silent you know!) in disks. "

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Your a riot, but some PS2 disks will melt if used in a PS3...

[Hell Kitty]

The sister of the best friend of the guy at the bus stop told me that if you use PS2 discs in a PS3 then the disc will melt then explode and then a nun will eat a baby.

[kirottu]

The sister of the best friend of the guy at the bus stop told me that if you use PS2 discs in a PS3 then the disc will melt then explode and then a nun will eat a baby.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I heard that very same thing at internet forum! It must be true! There should be some laws against nuns.

[thepixiesrock]

Your a riot, but some PS2 disks will melt if used in a PS3...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, that isn't the same thing as exploding, and I'm still a skeptopotamus about the validity of that statement.

Edited December 22, 2006 by thepixiesrock

[kirottu]

Your a riot, but some PS2 disks will melt if used in a PS3...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, that isn't the same thing as exploding, and I'm still a skeptopotamus about the validity of that statement.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Maybe the melted product mixes with something inside the PS3 making it explode? We need CSI to solve this mystary?!

[Surreptishus]

I actually heard that the Blu-Ray laser cuts the discs into shuriken shapes and then spits them back out. IIRC a few people have already lost a few limbs and appendages as a result.

[Meshugger]

I actually heard that the Blu-Ray laser cuts the discs into shuriken shapes and then spits them back out. IIRC a few people have already lost a few limbs and appendages as a result.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Awesome! (w00t)

[Llyranor]

You jerks. The PS3 is not an instrument of death.

 

http://therealps3grill.com/ps3grillpics.htm

[Nartwak]

This one is an even better deal.

[Krookie]

But you can't play it while you cook steak.

 

That defeats the whole purpose.

[metadigital]

I went out and purchased a PSone to play the original Tombraider; it cost me the equivalent of about ten DVDs in trade.

 

A more relevant point about backward-compatibility is that it is a COSTLY feature. In other words, it prevents a newer generation from being more radical: think of the advances of DirectX10 over the backward-compatible DirectX9, for example.

[mkreku]

A more relevant point about backward-compatibility is that it is a COSTLY feature. In other words, it prevents a newer generation from being more radical: think of the advances of DirectX10 over the backward-compatible DirectX9, for example.

Not quite true. If you have to make the new technology backwards compatible with the old hardware, then yes, you might have to do some sacrifices in how huge steps forward you can take. But if you look at Sony's solution for the Playstation 2, that's not the case. They could do whatever they wanted with the new hardware because they crammed the entire Playstation One onto one separate chip on the mainboard of the Playstation 2, thus leaving the new hardware unaffected by compatibility issues.

 

The Playstation 3 is also not effected in the way you describe (nor is the Xbox 360) because they use software for emulation. The new hardware can remain completely unaffected by old hardware if emulation is achieved through software. Well, it is supposed to be software on the Playstation 3 (I think), but the initial Playstation 3's (see EE * GS chip) include an entire Playstation 2 on one chip instead.

 

Still, it allowed Sony to go all out when they designed the Playstation 3, because there was no need for the new hardware to adhere to old standards.

[metadigital]

Well, that's reassuring, but there is still some (though apparently not much) resource cost involved ... even though the XBox 360 uses ATi's Xenos graphics technology, for example, but Microsoft still has to pay nVidia a fee for every box sold as a licence royalty for Xbox games.

 

Backward compatibility

 

Sony stated every PlayStation and PlayStation 2 game that observes its respective system's TRC (Technical Requirements Checklist) will be playable on PS3 at launch. SCE president Ken Kutaragi asked developers to adhere to the TRC to facilitate compatibility with future PlayStations, stating that the company was having some difficulty getting backward compatibility with games that had not followed the TRCs. It has been confirmed (image) that initial PS3 units include the CPU/rasterizer combination chip used in slim PS2 (EE+GS) to achieve backward compatibility.[41]

 

The PlayStation 3 does not include interfaces for legacy PlayStation devices, though IGN.com tested a legacy controller using a PS2-to-USB adapter, finding that it is compatible, though most other devices (such as the Guitar Hero controller) may not be compatible.[42] USB devices for PlayStation 2 may be compatible with PlayStation 3. The PS3 supports both the USB Eye Toy camera/webcam and SOCOM Headset for video and voice chat. A memory card adapter is available so users can save their PS/PS2 data on to a virtual memory card in the hard drive.[43] The PlayStation 3 can also use Memory Sticks to store save data for PlayStation and PlayStation 2 software.[44]

 

At least 3% of the games from the previous generations of the PlayStation had problems at launch such as dropped audio[45], freezes or controller malfunction[46]. Popular games reported to have this glitch include Final Fantasy, Tekken 5, and Gran Turismo. As of 16 November 2006, a firmware upgrade has been posted online by Sony that is intended to address some of these issues.[47]

 

In addition, the backward compatibility function is not region-free[48] and as of this moment there are no known homebrew hacks/patches to solve this issue.

 

Backward compatibility

 

    For more details on this topic, see List of Xbox games compatible with Xbox 360.

 

Backward compatibility is achieved through software emulation of the original Xbox. Emulated games offer graphical enhancements because they are rendered in 720p, 1080i, or 1080p resolution with anti-aliasing enabled rather than the Xbox standard of 480p.[34] Some games also benefit from an improvement in the rendered draw distance, possibly due to the system's greater memory bandwidth. However there are also games that do not perform well in emulation; these often exhibit a lower framerate on the Xbox 360.[39] A hard drive and the downloading of an emulation profile is needed in order to play original Xbox games. Updated emulation profiles can be obtained through Xbox Live, by burning a CD with profiles downloaded from Xbox.com, or by ordering an update disc from Microsoft.[40] The full list of backward-compatible games is maintained at Xbox.com. Although the current U.S. list includes 298 games (about 30% of the total Xbox game library, as of the December 14, 2006 update); fewer titles are backward compatible in European and Japanese markets, with 295 and 71 titles respectively.[41] Microsoft has stated that they intend to release more emulation profiles as they become available, with a goal of making the entire Xbox library playable on the Xbox 360. They have since made multiple statements indicating that this may never be complete, and the rate of updates to the backwards compatibility list is in line with this stated attitude.[42]

[Watchman]

I made a guess as to the future of the game concoles success at the end of November.

 

I was guessing that the Wii would have a great start but that it would fade fast as the Wii controler became "some old gimmick" Also contributing to this is the weak performance of the Wii. It is still a last gen console.

 

The PS3 would have a very bad start. You will not hear much of anything about it for most of 2007. Only by the end of 2007 will it take root in the gaming world. The reason? It will be a match between the 360 and the PS3. PS3 being newer will help, able to generate better graphics than the 360 will too. It biggest slow will be time to learn how to program it and use that power. Once that is handled it will out perform the 360 and just look better - a major reason for success. After that it will have 2 years to stand next to the 360 and ot shine it. Still it will most likely never overtake the 360 for the rest of its life.

 

360 has it made. At the time the others were being released some games that would do well were being released for the 360 giving it the permanent hold it needed before the others had even managed to sell one console. I think that Microsolt will stick to their promise to get the 720 out by 2009. I think the 360 will hold its own until the 720 comes along. But not without some hardware help by Microsolt to keep it from being antiquated by the PS3.

 

There you go, a little late but that is my prediction.

[mkreku]

I believe you may be right. Eurogamer ( http://www.eurogamer.net ) had a series of articles just recently where they looked at the upcoming games for all consoles during 2007. The easily best looking list of games was the one for Xbox 360. It has something like 12 exclusives and among them are Bioshock, Mass Effect and.. some other huge title I've forgotten right now. The Playstation 3 had something like 10 exclusives, but even though they were more diverse than the Xbox 360's equivalents, they didn't seem as interesting as the ones previously mentioned. The Wii.. Well, the list is like five games long and I really think the motion sensing controller is a gimmick. The Wii is just a pumped up, over priced Gamecube.

[thepixiesrock]

I went to Target today and they had like, 5 PS3s, and I was kind of suprised.

[Deraldin]

My town sucks. There isn't a Wii or a Playstation 3 anywhere within city limits.