hello, my name is
nathan pitman.

Heavy or not, I love mine.  I still play the PS2 a lot also (although that’s mostly serving duty to my Son – who loves the Tak games).

I think it’s a bit too early for these things (in fact, I just had a similar conversation with a co-worker). 

Yeah, people will buy them, but it’s the market still ripe for the current crop of gaming systems?

What I think is that microsoft messed up the xbox360.I think thay should of took more time to think and make enough to go around before releasing it. I dont think I want the xbox360 anymore, even my friends dont want it until its fixt up!

Where did you get that the SOny games were running fully, no my friend, although your post might have been half decent. you are very very wrong. The EXCUSE for microsoft was that, their games at E3 were on incomplete dev kits, what 4-5 away from launch. if you believe that, you my friend are mistaken. And although their processor is a tri-core, all that info has to run through two pipelines. Their processor is and OLD cell design. Of course the system is sweet and all, but IBM invested money in PS3 games. That is how much faith they have. And Oh, Microsoft is a software company, sure they have money, but for the x-box, they outsourced ALL technologies, accept for their development tools.

SOny has been snapping up a few small companies here and there, for their specialties. It has been awhile, but there were software companies, etc, cannot remember all. But if you think their online will be severely lacking to XBL, guess again.

Sony has been acquiring companies to stamnp out in areas where they woudl otherswise be lacking.

And as far as TROLLING, that x-box was more powerful, so X360 will be more powerful is nuts. Did anyone see MGS4, which was proven to be real-time. Put the best looking x360 game, gears of war next to it(and whose developers are highly excited about the PS3 by the way), the game is vastly superior and kojima has a filter on, so that it did not look so real.

Boy, i am waiting for the day I see a playable Killzone and motorstorm, wow, some folks who are in denial, will be slashing their wrists

I don’t know what to think.  Maybe I’ll have to buy both.  It’s all too confusing.  ahhhh But it seems to me, with the xbox making the hard drive optional, all the games that are developed for it will need to be dumbed down so either system will be able to play the games.  Then I heard sony will have an optional hard drive too?  If that’s the case, then It doesn’t matter, but if I find sonys comes standard, I know the games will be be made better by developers cause there will be no haves and have nots with the system.  Ya think?

Sony has defined the market for years.  The only saliant point up here was from Mathew – regarding the character of the games.  Microsoft has only 1 way to compete here – driving the price of their console below Sony’s price… and taking advantage of their financial position.  The console’s both take a significant jump – by simply keeping up with processor speeds and memory benefits over the last couple of years.  The “winner” has always come down to the games.  It remains to be seen how many each will have – and which one’s will rock you.  Do you want to give your money to Bill Gates? or to Sony?  That’s the only question.

i think the ps3 is before its time, why get a ps3 when you most people wont be able to use it to is full, blue ray etc .. the time every one has a hi def tv and game makes have started useing blue ray there will be an xbox 3 out which will be better

come on for starters sony is a huge electrical company by this i mean they make dvd players and the rest… so they are not looking specificaly at the ps3 now the xbox 360 as we all know comes from microsoft and they are a big computer company so they will focus alot on the 360 therefore it will turn out better. I also think that the people who complained about the first xbox controller to now think about what is going to be the ps3 controller… yes thats what im on about the boomerang shaped thing, i must say they are not thinking about how to keep the comfort of it good they are just slapping a design there and staring at it saying what a job we did “NOT”. Now ps2 lovers said the xbox was big take a look at the ps3 now thats big. i could now bore alot of you with the ins and outs of the console but im not but i do hope some of you ps2 lovers and maybe ps3 lovers change your mind and take a good look at the new revolutionary xbox 360. thank you.

3volution

SOME SIMPLE TIPS:

If you’re worried about the size and heft of the console… just wait a year for when the bastards release a smaller version. Also, I can’t stand when people complain about the prices of games. Do you not realize that after 6 months the prices are usually cut in half (sometimes even more)?? Just wait so you can save your money. When PS3 comes out, morons will flock to the stores spending a fortune on the new system. I’ll be laughing 6 months later when I buy the same thing for half the original price.

Kyle, regarding backwards compatability. When I first got my PS2 and there were only a few decent titles to play I loved the fact that I could still use my old PS1 titles, it was agreat bonus, and it mean I could sell my PS1 to finance the PS2!

Also, there are some classics that you just don’t want to let go of. Ridge Racer on the PS1 for example. That was the first game I saw on PS1 way back before it was released and one I really couldn’t part with.

any one out there now about the release dates and halo 3

it is not fair that these consoles are sold at this price because you will lose 150 pounds straight away if you want to sell it and people will not pay these prices.

I have personally looked into all the aspects of all the consoles and I am a software developer, so I do know some other aspects of each console.

For ease, I will ignore the Nintendo Revolution for now.  They need to release some more information about their console before I can comment on it…

First off, both systems will be awesome and blow the minds off gamers and game developers.  Although I personally prefer the XBOX 360’s look, I know many people prefer the PS3. 

An interesting side note: (From what I have read…)The PS2 did well in Japan and the asian countries because it was small.  Not to be stereotypical, but asians love small-type gadgets and they live in smaller housing.  It will be interesting to see how the some-what smaller XBOX 360 performs here against the noticably larger PS3.

I think that the PS3 specs are somewhat overblown.  Remember that before the PS2 came out, Sony promised that it would be able to render Toy Story in real time.  Also, even thought the Cell processor may have 1.8TF of streaming floating point calculations, most games don’t benefit from it.  (Please forgive my numbers if they are off, but they should be somewhat close.) 87.5 percent of the Cell processor is dedicated to streaming floating point calculations.  When you anylize the best games today, you notice that only about 10-15% of the game time is floating point calculation, while only about half of that is streaming floating point.

Also, it is foolish to use blue laser technologies for the generation of gaming.  The most requested thing from developers for the next versions of consoles were quicker disc seek times and faster reading.  By using new blue laser technologies, you instantly loose the seek time performance because the disc size is so big.  Also, if it gets any bit damaged (much easier on a higher density disc), the read errors increase and then you lose performance.  Lastly, the third major request from game developers was a lower price.  By using a (now unfinished) blue laser technology, you can instantly add about $100 to the price (remember how much DVD drives cost when they came out).  XBOX 1 games used dual layer DVDs, but 90% of the games would fit on a single layer disc, so there isn’t much need for more storage.

Both systems are not dirrectly compairable because of the new technology (Cell vs 3 Core PPC, ATI vs nVIDIA), so lets try to assume that they are about equal.  The reason that XBOX 360 games will look great in the future will be because of their new (patented) “Procedural Synthesis” technology.  Basically, this makes games look much better and much quicker to develop by using code instead of art. I will quickly try to describe it here, but there is a full article on it here(http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-1.ars?97898).  Lets say you were trying to make a great looking forest.  In cheap games, developers make one tree and copy it a hundred times to make a forest.  In good games, developers hire an army of computer artists to hand make trees to put in the forest.  In the XBOX 360 world, you make code to generate the tree and the XBOX 360 will automatically create each tree differently.  This saves memmory space because all the trees’ vertex points don’t need to be saved, making the game render faster and look better with less memmory needed.

Lets also use “Procedural Synthesis” for another problem.  I know you have seen games where something is suppost to be circular, but instead it is a polygon.  This is because the computer artist is not able to make a circle because all objects are made with triangles.  Also, the artist needs to think about how long it takes to render a good circle.  Well with a fake-circle (polygon based) there is much memmory taken up by storing each triangle’s vertexes on the circle.  In XBOX 360, an artist is able to create a “circle” without having to worry about performance because the XBOX 360 will intelligently render the circle to the best it can without lag.  This produces a better looking circle with faster performance because very little memmory needs to be used to define the circle.

Also, regular gamers don’t really care to the specific performance specs of the system, it is the games and accessories.  At E3, Sony said that their PS3 was running on stage at full performance, so don’t expect the games/technical previews to look much better.  On the other hand, the XBOX 360 hardware was only working 25-40%, so expect big jumps in performance and graphics by launch.  I think that the technical topics of the systems are too overblown and what will ultimately determine the success of the platform will be the games.  With Microsoft taking a lead with “Procedural Synthesis”, more games will be developed quicker with better graphics.  Software is a major topic that isn’t being discussed and since I am from a developer’s point of view, I can safely say that XBOX 360 should provide ample competition to PS3.

Now, for my market analysis, I believe that the XBOX 360 will tie or overtake the PS3.  Remember that system performance is not a major factor in market share, so I am looking at the business decisions for my analysis.  When the XBOX 360 is released, people will be so amazed that they’ll buy the system.  Being first is a great advantage.  Also, XBOX 360 (from my knowledge) should be less in cost than PS3.  People expect PS3 to be between $400-500.  It shouldn’t be the normal $300, because Sony said at their E3 launch that it would be more than the usual amount.  Microsoft promised developers to be around $300 at launch, so it should be in ballpark.  (I think it would be funny if they sold XBOX 360 at a price of $360) Lastly, since the Dev-Kits for XBOX 360 have been out for a much longer time, there should be many more games for 360 at launch than PS3.  Microsoft said 25-40 games would be released at launch with another 180 games already in development for release in 2006.

If I might say one last thing… If you would ask any gamer if they would like backwards compatibility, they’d say yes.  But seriously, how many PS1 games did you play on PS2?  Most people would say not very many.  If they did play any PS1 games, it would only be the best ones.  XBOX 360 will be backwards compatible for all popular games, so this shouldn’t be an issue.

Just for your knowledge, I have not altered any of the information and I am only giving my best professional opinion with the most accepted facts about the consoles.  In the end, all gamers have benefited from the competition from Microsoft and Sony.

Thanks for reading!  I would love to hear your comments ().

Kyle Egbert

Dame that ps 3 and xbox 360 are sicker then the flu bug.

yo guys everyone knows that xbox will always beat Ps2 I mean it’s just common knowledge first off there’s Halo o ya and Halo 2 which PS2 will never have plus Xbox is also getting GTA: San Andreas ao basically Playstation is the playgorund for the chumps and Xbox is the arena for the champs so get with yall cuz who wants to be on the losing side of the spectrum

I disagree about how how the quantity of games matters.

Who has enough money to buy the tons and tons games that are out for the PS2?  On my xbox, I have a few specific games that I play a LOT, and that’s all I need.  I am not informed enough about the PS2 games to comment on their quality, but I can say that I know that graphicallywise, xbox wins this round, and the graphics for the next 2 systems will probably both be so good you won’t be able to tell the difference.

Also, remember:  Xbox has XBL, a remarkable system that PS2 doesn’t have yet.  Xbox360 also has H3 and Morrowind: Oblivion :)

I’ve got both an Xbox and PS2 and I’ve got to say I like the PS2 much better.  The Xbox has some real gems, like Jade Empire, but the PS2 has a much larger library of quality titles, and I have yet to find an Xbox game that carries even an ounce of the character that so many PS2 games possess.  Memorable titles like Disgaea and Kingdom Hearts really do much to catapult the PS2 ahead of their almost generic videogame competition.

Looking forward to the PS3.  It’s going to be a such a lovely beast.

I tend to agree, it’s pretty early to be releasing the next thing but having said that I think Sony are looking at a 2006 release date in the UK, so that’s still some way off.

We were also discussing at work whether Microsoft have any chance of breaking Sonys grip on the market, it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out…

i think microsoft is trying to capture the gaming market by releasing xbox 360 earlier then ps3 and want to make profits before ps3 arrives….......