OSNews

Online gaming? See the following article:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061122-8275.html

It looks like we're going to be using Blue-Ray disks for software for some time to come.

I don't quite get what you are pointing to... you link in an article dealing with latancy issues and then you say something about blue-ray as a way of distribution software.
Latancy is no where relevant for distributing software online, it is just relevant for networked playing.

And as for now, playing games over an online network works well enough. Otherwise we would not have thousands of WoW players and i never had any lag issues with Counterstrike: Source on my favourite servers as well.

So the Ars-Article not only deals with an entirely different topic but also only is an "what could happen".

Slightly OT:

And as for now, playing games over an online network works well enough. Otherwise we would not have thousands of WoW players and i never had any lag issues with Counterstrike: Source on my favourite servers as well.

It really depends on the game. Online chess tolerates seconds of latency. WoW tolerates half-seconds. Counterstrike tolerates tenths of seconds. All of the above tolerate latency much better than 2D fighters like Super Street Fighter II Turbo can. And coding can only help so much. For example, SSF2T requires two-way response times of under 1/60th of a second for tournament play (at the default (slow) speed): that's a maximum of 1500 miles if you had a point to point connection that offered communication at the speed of light (in a vacuum). Given the host-to-host speed of the internet, that's only a few hundred miles of separation between players at best for playable gameplay. It's even worse if you need to connect to a common server.

With fast paced games like SSF2T, you'd be lucky to have a lag-free game with someone halfway across the state, let alone halway across the country. Turn up the speed to more common levels and you'd be lucky to be able to play someone across the city.

All of the above tolerate latency much better than 2D fighters like Super Street Fighter II Turbo can. And coding can only help so much.

How about 3D fighting game like Tekken or Virtua Fighter. The latter is well-known to heavily rely on framerate.

ha ... man do you even know what you are talking about? The PS3 JUST came out and as such it is expected that games are still barely tapping the hardware. Remember the first XBOX360 games? It took developers about 6 months to release anything worth buying. So I'd say Sony is in a way better position. Oh and consider the fact that Xbox got discontinued about 3 years after it was released ( actually less than that ) while PS2 has been around for what seems like forever. I really fail to see how MS would manage to keep it's position now that they have real competition. Especially since MS does nothing in order to improve the quality of the games that get released.

Well, some of those are firmware glitches, that will probably be reworked with new revisions (no background downloading, pausing downloads)

Not sure what you mean by complicated setup, probably that report that says you have to plug wireless controller ONCE before it is ready to use.

Lack of HiDef cables are a small pain in the a**, but for me bigger pain is that I lack HD TV

Sony doesn't have to be perfect on a launch day, they will sell every single one even if they've

a) made ten times more that estimated 400k
b) made some REALLY big mistakes with PS3 (instead of this few minor, firmware update fixable ones)

Look at the big picture; the next gen war just started, it will be fought for next 4-5 or even more years. Dreamcast had one year headstart, and 10 mil consoles sold, look at them now

MS shipped estimated 7 mil consoles, and they've sold 2.5 mil of them in first 10 months (MS says number is a bit higher, 3.3 million). Not too much of a headstart, really (considering that numbers for Sony consoles tend to be 100+ mil during 5-6 years lifecycle).

Anyway, this next gen war will be interesting, competition is good Both MS and Sony have insanely powerful machines, and Wii is bringing some neat innovation at a cheaper price.

I'm not doubting that the PS3 will be a success, it will. I'm basing opinion on the right now - and not the 'possible' future. Sony is doing a 'PC' on us, pushing out a half finished product and patching it later. 10 years ago, no console would launch in an flakey state, period. The truth of the matter, is that right here and right now the PS3 has a sub-optimal experience compared to the highly honed XBox360.

Are we so brain washed by marketing and hype that we spend $600-$10'000 on a console, and accept that the firmware is only '1.0'? 1.0 should mean final, done, feature complete. Is this the console equivilent of web2.0's 'Beta' or what?

Sony are right, the PS3 is a PC alright, the users will accept just about any bullcrap shoved their way.

Edited 2006-11-22 23:40

Well, 10 years ago you didn't have internet download or a complicated setup, because consoles were not doing too much, you would just put cartridge or CD in it and play a game

Today consoles are trying o became the center of home entertainment, and firmware (or console OSes) are starting to get much more complicated. And with a chance to easily get firmware patches, I really don't find it that bad. Sony (or MS) can adopt firmware to what people actually want.

I wouldn't go that far to say that PS3 has sub-optimal experience to XBox 360. It is probably weaker in some areas (downloading stuff) and better in some other areas (uhm, I don't know, built in web browser? 20GB disc by default, 60Gb in high end model, support for guest OSes, support for HD movies, built in power supply....). Btw, MS actually didn't get it right either, their first consoles actually also didn't have background downloading. Which was fixed via firmware patch

Relax, you probably didn't have a chance to buy PS3 yet, by the time you will, the price should drop, and minor annoyances will be gone and forgotten. And if you were lucky enough to get one on launch day, enjoy, it is a really nice piece of hardware and you are in the 0,005 % of world populace that has a privilege of owning it.

Yea, the 360 wasn't perfect when it came out either, there just wasn't anything to compare it to back then except the previous generation so all the reviews tended to be pretty positive and overlooked some of the problems. The sad truth is that almost nothing that is easily updated these days (by the internet) comes out in a polished form. That has affected PC's for years and now that the consoles are online it is affecting them as well. Obviously most companies have decided that when possible it makes business sense to release early and patch later.

Edited 2006-11-23 00:31

>Btw, MS actually didn't get it right either, their first consoles actually also didn't have background downloading. Which was fixed via firmware patch

That's true, but Sony should have learned from others and implemented background download in the first place. No point in repeating the same mistakes.

Also of course the xbox360 doesn't even come with a hdmi output... Even more it doesn't support 1080p.

I think what people are forgetting is that Sony really never had a serious compeitor to the market. When the PS2 came out it came out earlier then the Xbox. I guess you could say the Dreamcast but there was so many issues with that at the time that it never had a chance to become a viable competitor to the Sony PS2. Also when the Xbox came out Sony has made a huge success with the PS1 and having the PS2 borrow heavily from the PS1 success only helped. MS only purpose with the Xbox was simply to penetrate the market and show that they can make a better console then Sony which they succeeded in.

The 360 has a good chance at overcoming gthe PS3 though. If anything its cheaper and does graphics just as well as the PS3. This is something Sony has not had to face yet really. The PS2 was not threatened by the Xbox at all it had already secured the market by the time the Xbox and GC came out. And the original PS1 succeeded against the Saturn which was an admitted failure by even Sega and the N64 which was a great system that got hobbled with a cartridge which proved to be a great bottleneck.

Now its a whole new ball game. What used to matter really doesn't anymore. Nintendo with its Wii pretty much threw out all preconceived notions of how to make a next gen console and is currently enjoying a huge launch success and media parade. The 360 has been out for a year and is steadily growing. It has graphics that seem to match the PS3 and a library of games that are slowly getting better.

So what does the PS3 bring to the table that people want? I guess you can say a BluRay player but with the market uncertain on who will win that format war I doubt it. U|3ber technology? The only people who care are the people who argue about it on forums. Linux? thats like what? 0.5% maybe less of people who care if their video game system can install linux. 1080p? Again how many people have a TV that can do that? In fact its actually bad considering if your TV cannot do that or 720p you may get screwed and stuck with 480p resolution despite if your TV can support 1080i apparently 1080i < 720p/480p

The only thing it has going for it right now is FF/MGS/Backwards Compatiability (Maybe? how many people do not own a PS2 but own a PS3?)

it will be an interesting year to say the least.

Yeah, the xbox360 is/was said to have had a worse launch with less units sold than the original xbox, and the original xbox got no brand reckognition and wasn't the first one which came out. Go figure. Also the original one have only sold around 25 million units or so.

*adds a point to the score*

Very true; Sony on one hand spends half its time coming up with expensive proprietary technology whilst Microsoft sits back and things, "now, how can we get all this stuff to work together; 360, computer and Zune all singing a sweet tune for the end user".

For example; Sony came up with PSP; great idea; UMD; another great idea, small media that's easily portable - stupid idea? not providing a drive to allow people to transfer their music to the drive - not providing a touch screen to allow PSP to be more than just a glorified gaming machine.

Microsoft has their eyes open and realise that end users will want to use their machine for mor than just one purpose; Sony on the other hand have their heads up their ass doing everything half assed, if it isn't their half baked porting of Linux and support of alternative operating systems, its their crap firmware which has a half baked browser, and if isn't their crap software, it is their half-baked kit and costly expansion bits and pieces.

Er, except you can use the PSP as a mass storage audio device with a memory stick. Why would anyone except Thom The World's Sole Remaining Minidisc Apologist want to buy a UMD writer drive for the express purpose of transferring audio to the PSP when they can just copy MP3 files to a memory stick?

Because memory sticks are expensive, slow, and lack size.

The whole point of the UMD was that it was write only--Sony created it with the explicit purpose of preventing games from being copied. Otherwise they would have just used the MiniDisc format.... Of course, in my opinion the DS's lack of moving parts makes it smaller, sturdier and more elegant. But despite the UMD's limitations, I still don't get what the big deal is--can't you just copy music/movies to a memory stick if you want to use them on the PSP?

Edited 2006-11-23 08:52

And memory sticks cost a bloody fortune, slow and lack space; give me a 16gig memory stick for $80, then we can start talking about the viability of memory sticks.

Er, why, because you'd be able to buy a 16GB UMD and a writer for $80?

PSP is not Sony's idea, it's been done many times before, and the Nintendo Gameboy system is much more popular.

I'd say Nintendo is the new Apple.

Let's face it, with the GameCube Nintendo got owned by Sony and Microsoft.

Now, they try something in a completely fresh direction and they are doing great and "back in the game" again.

Hell, they even have the same color scheme as Apple. Even the Wii GUI is decidedly Appleesque (lots of white, pin striping, etc).

I think you might be right here... PS3 is far superior in graphics and processing power, but it lacks the "Wow!" factor. Nintendo on the other hand is trying to re-define how the game is played. Only time will tell if they succeed, but it will be fun to watch.

Let's face it, with the GameCube Nintendo got owned by Sony and Microsoft.

ms and sony wrote red numbers in their game divisions. nintendo did earn money.
I'd say nintendo owned them all

Sony loses money periodically during the development of new consoles, but they made a huge net profit over the lifetime of the PS1 and PS2. Even with a billion dollar loss incurred during the development of the console, they made back several times that in license fees and system sales.

Nintendo is consistently profitable with its systems, but they also don't make as much money as Sony does over the lifetime of the system. Also, Sony's primary profit center is the platform, while Nintendo's is their first party games (they're one of the largest game publishers in the world). Sony's console business by itself would still make a lot of money, while Nintendo's console business by itself wouldn't.

Edited 2006-11-23 03:37

for now, considering that it's only been a couple of hours since launch. For the love of gaming wait until we have the next firmware, the next couple of games that are developed solely for the power it harnesses, then come back and check your review.

It's the same everytime, who needs cds when we have cartridges, who needs dvd based games when cd's are all we are ever going to need.

Should probably dredge up every negative review that came out about earlier consoles just for the heck of it.

Nintendo is consistently profitable with its systems, but they also don't make as much money as Sony does over the lifetime of the system

Sure enough, Nintendo makes more profit by console sold than Sony. So what do you mean ?

Also, Sony's primary profit center is the platform, while Nintendo's is their first party games (they're one of the largest game publishers in the world). Sony's console business by itself would still make a lot of money, while Nintendo's console business by itself wouldn't

This is false. Nintendo earns money on everything : console, 1st party and 3rd party games.
What you say is even more false for handhelds, where Nintendo makes tons of money off handheld sold as well.
Sony mostly does money on games. Selling lots of console helps of course.

i agree also, look at the dimensions and the look of the Wii, it wouldn't look out of place next to an iMac.

No, no, Apple is still a whipping boy.
It's just that missery loves company.

Time will tell and unlike Apple, Sony is made up a many seemingly independant entities that behave in a variety of ways. Sometimes good, sometimes bad and everything inbetween.

The Wii launch titles are good but where does PS3 fall short? And I don't doubt it will become a great system, and I don't think it's more expensive than the xbox360 considering probably better hardware, bluraydrive, free online gaming, ..

You can't compare the amount of games of a one year old system compared to a brand new one, wait one year and you'll see which one is the better comparing PS3 THEN to xbox360 NOW.

I won't get one thought, if I would buy one system it would be the Wii but I already got the cube and ds so.. I'll wait until you can pirate / prices has fallen considerably.

Ars technica 'came up' with the article; and it was a very good article that tried to get through the thick sickly hype-fog surrounding the console.

Gears OF War, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Too Human, Lost Planet, Halo3, Alan Wake, the list goes on.. These are the things that the 360 has. The hardware isn't what sells the system its the games.

Edited 2006-11-23 05:41

Gears OF War, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Too Human, Lost Planet, Halo3, Alan Wake, the list goes on.. These are the things that the 360 has. The hardware isn't what sells the system its the games

I agree, games sell the hardware. Unfortunately, none of the game you cited, are hardware salers. Halo was, and Halo2 follows, but that's all.
Now, compare with what Sony has : GTA, MGS, Final Fantasy. Well, I should rather say companies like Enix Square, Capcom, Konami.
You know, all the hit makers ! People will buy the console just to play these games, you can be sure of that.
Nintendo is one exclusive for, well, Nintendo.
That's what XBox360 and MS lacks. XBox360 was selling as much as the GameCube in Japan. If you want all these hit makers japanese companies, you've got to pay for it, or make games that appeal to the japanese market, so that it sells in Japan, and that japanese companies make games for the console.
When MS did that, the two games that could appeal to the japanese market (Blue Dragon and NNN) tripled the sales of XBox360 there. It's still not much, but it's a good start.

Microsoft has GTA too. So Sony is down to just MGS and FF. And Halo is the bigger franchise than either of those (look at recent sales).*

And if you don't thing Gears is a system seller, you've got a big surprise coming.

Also, so far multiplatform titles are better on 360 (e.g. COD3). The Unreal Engine itself, which many games will be based on, runs better on 360, supposedly due to 360's better use of RAM (360 has 512MB shared RAM, while PS3 has 256MB general RAM and 256MB video RAM; and 360's "OS" takes less than half the amount of RAM that the PS3's does).




*I couldn't care less about Japan.

Edited 2006-11-23 18:05

Minor correction. GTA IV is not a PS3 exclusive. It is being released on PS3 and XBox360 at the same time.

But this was what people said about the Xbox when it came out despite the already established PS2. Whilst Xbox did ships with a couple of killer games (Halo, PGR) from the outset it took a couple of years to become a contender.

This time the 360 has an advantage but I don't think anyone's doubting that the PS3 will deliver some amazing games in the near future.

But, Sony has a lot to lose and they really ought to have delivered a more polished experience. I'm still leaning in favour of the 360. Us Europeans are still waiting for PS3.

While I haven't used either system, judging by the reviews it sounds like it's not so much a difference of features as it is a difference in ease of use. It's like the difference between (ironically) OS X and Windows-- OS X is simply designed better. The XBox interface is simply designed better. For me, that's a big selling point. Others may feel differently. The PS3 side of things may improve with firmware updates, and it may not, that remains to be seen...

"The way I see it there is not anything that xbox has that the ps3 doesn't, and there are several features that the ps3 has that the xbox does not.

So logic dictates that the ps3 is superior. "

If thats true, then i suppose the zune is superior to the ipod, yet fanboys disagree

How is Microsoft ignoring Japan? you do realise that there are more countries besides Japan? given the estimated Wii sales, is it really worth their while trying to go the full monety?

Also, remember the last company who entered Japan without researching? Vodafone, who failed to realise that flip phones were the preferred device, but they insisted on delivering standard - net result? they lost billions on their investment; they've since bailed with their tale between their legs; maybe Microsoft want to make sure than when they enter the market with everything setup.

Er...

you realise Microsoft entered the Japanese market a long time ago, right?

They launched the XBox there early. Heck, they launched the 360 there before the U.S., IIRC, or at least simultaneously. They backed them with huge, expensive publicity campaigns.

Net result? Mass indifference. Japanese people just don't buy XBoxes. I can't really figure out why. There's nothing particularly wrong with the system from a Japanese perspective. Their marketing is fine, they contract it out to local firms, they don't stuff it up culturally or anything. Heck, they even have at least a few games in the classically popular genres. Just...no-one really buys into it.

Nationalistic loyalty to local brands, the fact that it comes accross as yet another attempt by a US company to dump a product on the Japanese market without creating any long term relationship by setting up a decent presence in Japan?

Western businesses stuff up in Japan because they just don't get it(tm) they come in thinking in western terms; there was a good article on those who are succeeding in Japan; its all about developing relationships, networking and so forth; something the so-called 'fast moving businesses' like Microsoft would rather not spend time doing.

Like I said, XBox, yet another sad attempt to dump and extract money out of a country.

Japanese companies don't attempt to dump and extract money out of other countries? That explains the lack of japanese electronics and automobiles in North America. Thanks for clearing that up

"I can't really figure out why."

Because MS is not a Japanese company?

I realize it's attractive to blame everything on xenophobia (particularly given that it is so rampant in the West), but that's not the case with the 360 in Japan. Western fast food giants like McDonalds and Burger King absolutely dominate Japan. Apple's products outsell Sony's many times over. Lee jeans, despite being priced much higher, have sales that wipe the floor with local brands. Pretty much anything with American connotations will sell superbly in Japan at the expense of local brands. Microsoft's first console, the MSX, actually did well in Japan (it wasn't even a blip on the radar in the US).

However, Microsoft just dropped the Xbox in Japan with zero support. They'd release very few games, and what were released were titles like Buffy the Vampire Slayer: two years late and entirely untranslated. MS just didn't care about moving the Xbox in Japan.

Now, they've done a better job with the 360 -- games don't come out quite as late and they're usually translated. At the same time, the support is still very shoddy compared to that in the US, and 3rd party support (outside of Capcom) is negligible. Moreover, in the US, the 360 is driven almost entirely by its First Person Shooters and that's just not a genre the Japanese enjoy.

We'll see how Microsoft handles things in the coming years. They've still got a chance.

you realise Microsoft entered the Japanese market a long time ago, right?
They launched the XBox there early. Heck, they launched the 360 there before the U.S., IIRC, or at least simultaneously. They backed them with huge, expensive publicity campaigns.
Net result? Mass indifference. Japanese people just don't buy XBoxes. I can't really figure out why

And I'm not surprised you can't. You're not alone. People stuck in viewing games fun as how many polygon a console can draw can never understand the japanese mind, which is not about polygons, but about actual fun games.
So these people (like you) can't understand that Brain Age will sell far more than Halo in Japan.
Fortunately for MS, they seem to have understood that japanese people want games, not polygons, and started paying the japanese companies to do some worthwile games for the japanese market. And the effect was instantaneous : 3 times the usual (low) sales there.
Sony, having japanese heads, don't have these problems. They also got good relationship with most japanese 3rd party.

There's nothing particularly wrong with the system from a Japanese perspective. Their marketing is fine, they contract it out to local firms, they don't stuff it up culturally or anything. Heck, they even have at least a few games in the classically popular genres. Just...no-one really buys into it

You're wrong only in the part that matter : they don't have even one game in the classical popular genre that is any fun or good ... or don't have at all.
Unless you think FPS is "the classically popular genres".
These genres are what Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Nintendo, ... does.
Sony doesn't have to worry, as for now, PS2 is still selling very well, while PS3 struggles with supplies.

Nobody is buying XBox games in Japan is because Microsoft's support for the region has been terrible. Poor translations (or no translations), poor marketing, poor emphasis on locally-popular genres, etc.

There have been arguments that the Japanese market is insular, and just doesn't want to buy an American product, but that's a ridiculous argument. The Japanese buy up American products (and American culture in general) very readily.

I'll just wait for the PS3 slim version.

I suppose Genesi have enough on their plate, with their upcoming products (featuring IBM's PPC970MP and Freescale's MPC8641D), but I think they are the most likely player to enter the market with a Cell based board targetting developers and enthusiasts, perhaps even embedded/industrial. I think that would be awesome. Cell unleashed, without restrictions, just plain OpenFirmware. No DRM. Less secrets. Simply running $MYOPERATINGSYSTEM as close to the machine as possible.

FWIW, there's a PS3 section on their developer website:
http://www.powerdeveloper.org/playstation.php

And they blog about Cell from time to time:
http://likerabbits.blogspot.com/
http://bbrv.blogspot.com/

Edited 2006-11-23 13:05

Mercury Computers has some Cell products ranging from a blade, 1U server, eval system.

www.mc.com/cell

Edited 2006-11-23 13:41