Console Wars!

[thepanda]

The PS3 has uncloaked, locking onto the Xbox 360 with its deadly 'baterang' torpedoes! Just the unpredictable Big N has yet to play its revolutionary card. . .

Is anyone else hoping we have some serious three way competition this time around? ^_^

[Zenthor]

No, not really.  I have no qualms with one or two platforms being far, far above the other(s).  Less money I have to spend.

[kpjam]

No, not really.  I have no qualms with one or two platforms being far, far above the other(s).  Less money I have to spend.

exactly

[Music-chan]

No kidding. I mean, only people who can AFFORD three consols at once are hoping for compitition. As long as the PS2/3 still is far above the rest when it comes to RPGs, I know what I'll be buying.  And I'd rather get Nintendo products before the MS ones.  It'll be interesting to see what the different companies have in mind for their new consols, but I'm not looking forward to the bashing.

[thepanda]

Eh? The last volly wasn't THAT expensive, really. You know they're going to have to keep the prices managable so people can afford them. Plus, they aren't all coming out at the same time so you do have some time to raise the funds. Unless you happen to be one of those people who just has to have the console of their choice as soon as possible you can wait until the first round of price drops.

I know without a doubt I'll be getting a PS3, but that Blue Dragon game makes me want the Box2. BADLY. Given that it is an Xbox game I figure the chances of it being localized are pretty good. Plus we're finally seeing some diversity in the people working with the Box this time around.And you know the Big N delivers, even if it is all Mario/Zelda/Metrios/Pokemon. People complain about that, but there is no denying that Nintendo makes fun games, a lost art in this day and age.

My only, ONLY hope this generation is that the playstation no longer has load times. I'd kill to be able to play my PSX version of FFVI without spending half the game loading.

[Brian]

Eh? The last volly wasn't THAT expensive, really. You know they're going to have to keep the prices managable so people can afford them. Plus, they aren't all coming out at the same time so you do have some time to raise the funds. Unless you happen to be one of those people who just has to have the console of their choice as soon as possible you can wait until the first round of price drops.

Mmm.  300$ launch price times 3.  900.  + peripherals and, say, a single 50$-60$ game per system, you've capped 1k easily.

And that's a lot of money to spend on a hobby.

That being said, I own a PS2, an X-Box, and a GCN.  I got the GCN (well, 100$ off, after it had been reduced in price) as a promo for getting employee of the month at EA.  I got the PS2 used in exchange for forgiving a 300$ loan from a friend who I knew could never pay it.  I got the X-box when I managed to stack 16 return offers at a single EB to get 700$ of store credit (and two free games).

I doubt fortune will favor me so kindly for round, what, five?

I know without a doubt I'll be getting a PS3, but that Blue Dragon game makes me want the Box2. BADLY. Given that it is an Xbox game I figure the chances of it being localized are pretty good. Plus we're finally seeing some diversity in the people working with the Box this time around.And you know the Big N delivers, even if it is all Mario/Zelda/Metrios/Pokemon. People complain about that, but there is no denying that Nintendo makes fun games, a lost art in this day and age.

My only, ONLY hope this generation is that the playstation no longer has load times. I'd kill to be able to play my PSX version of FFVI without spending half the game loading.

I hope that all of my favorite developers all pick the same console to support.

[Halbarad]

Loading times will always be a factor as long as the system uses optical media. They can MINIMIZE it, but it'll never entirely disappear as long as they're using discs.

That said, they ARE managing to make large-capacity flash storage media (CD-sized flash cards aren't too expensive), but those are likely too expensive to mass-produce for games.

[Zenthor]

Meh, as Brian said, 1K is a LOT to spend on a hobby.  But, really, I'll likely just pick up the RPG leader shortly after its release, the Nintendo console after a good Zelda or Metroid game comes out, and ignore the X-Box.  Because if the Box2 is anything like the Box1 was, all it will have for games is a list of shitty FPSes and a handful of Multi-platform games that I will buy on another platform.

[Brian]

Loading times will always be a factor as long as the system uses optical media. They can MINIMIZE it, but it'll never entirely disappear as long as they're using discs.

Actually, he was mentioning the load times of emulation specifically.  The problem is that the FFIII - VI games were never optimized to run in any format other than roms.  The entire game could fit in the system's RAM, but it needs to read from disk because the emulator isn't able to use that much memory.

More or less.

And that load time will not be eliminated, unless the PSIII has an HD, and some crazy "copy entire disk to hard-drive" option, and the odds of that....

[Getzeye]

And that load time will not be eliminated, unless the PSIII has an HD, and some crazy "copy entire disk to hard-drive" option, and the odds of that....

What are the odds that someone will mod it to have a HD and have that option?

3/5 of my friends has had their XBox and PS2 modded to be able to do that.

Give it enough time and someone else will come up with a way to do that.

Gonna be expensive mods though.

For a 250gig HD mod into an XBox is about $300AUD.

[Anastasia]

Mmm.

I wouldn't mind real competition from Nintendo, if they can finally get a third party solution down and stop shitting that up. Ditto with Sony, as the PS2  has become the leading RPG console and I wish those to continue. As for the Xbox? Don't know, don't care. It's horridly cliched, but I systematically hate the X-Box and everything to do with it, moreso after having to see it in action.

The tactics bother me for some reason, even though it's probably not warranted on a logical view of things.

[Brian]

Personally, as someone who dislikes Microsoft in general, I see nothing wrong with the Xbox.  It's huge, yeah, but what tower of gaming machines doesn't need a base?  The only real flaws with the system that I can see (admittedly, I do not take advantage of the Live service) is that first-party development tends to be ... unimpressive.

It's got good peripherals, good hardware, and ... the library of games does not soley consist of titles that are already availible on other consoles.  The X-box IS the most powerful of the three current consoles.  But that doesn't make it less of a damn shame that they look like they're throwing away the X-box for the 360, when they've not really explored the full market potential of their existing platform.

Obviously, a major impetus for the shift from the X-box to X-sphere is the new attention being paid to the Live service (which ... doesn't really appeal to me).  And that does make the X-box look quite a lot like an open beta for their real baby, the X-box 360.  But all told, Microsoft the console manufacturer is a different beast from Microsoft the OS vendor.

That being said, some X-box titles are fairly awesome to me: Breakdown, and Jade Empire, for starters.  Panzer Dragon was a miss (I loved me the others, though. :/) for me.  I am biased by getting my X-box for (essentially) free.

But hating the console because you don't like their OS is just going to eliminate them as a competitor.  And we WANT them to compete.  We WANT them to try and undersell one-another to get to us.  Competition ensures that they're competing to not only GET our attention (Hi!  New console!  OBEY THE SHINEY!) but KEEP it (Yo!  Check out this awesome new title!).

Anywho.  Not to rant; the main reason for my stance is spelled out in large dollar-signs here:
The Price of Next Gen Gaming

Source: games.slashdot.org

[Dracos]

I'm not with the 'let's have all games multimultiplayer' either. =\

Dracos

[thepanda]

Anywho.  Not to rant; the main reason for my stance is spelled out in large dollar-signs here:
The Price of Next Gen Gaming

Source: games.slashdot.org

Hm. For those of us not particularly thrilled with the idea of getting a suround sound system and HDTV just to play video games I see the cost as being significantly cheaper. Color me crazy but I don't need Lunar or Disgaea or even the next FF game in HD. I just want to have fun playing them.

[Brian]

Yeah, but the article admitted that it was a luxury.  Don't look at their up-front price-tag for a theater centered around once console; look at their prices for all consoles.  Just hearing that they may be looking at a 400$ launch price makes me cringe.

And I truly dread the next price-hike in gaming.  50$ a game is twice what I spent in my NES days, and I'll live with that.  60$ a game is crossing a line where I need to rethink the investment before I make it.  Sure, I may occasionally spring for a collector's edition, which can cost significantly more than 60$, but at the same time, that's when there's there's a ready (and generally cheaper) alternative.

I'm not looking forward to newer technology in gaming as much.  I really want to see better games, and with the latest systems ... we should have the technology we need to see really bad-ass games already.

But people don't buy into that as much as they buy into new consoles, at least right after E3. :/