July console sales numbers, Volume 2........

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Console sales numbers for the United States as reported by NPD...

Wii - 425,000
DS - 405,000
PS2 - 222,000
PSP - 214,000
360 - 170,000
PS3 - 159,000
GBA - 87,000

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

More news out of Leipzig.......

Haze is no longer a timed console exclusive. It will now be released solely on the PS3 and PC with no 360 version planned. (I'd post the article, but it's in German.)

Also, here's the combined July sales numbers for the U.S. and Japan (Europe numbers not out yet).........

Wii:
us - 425,000
ca - 36,419
ja - 335,307
total - 796,726

PS3:
us - 159,000
ca - 15,037
ja - 78,798
total - 252,835

Xbox 360:
us - 170,000
ca - 13,119
ja - 12,169
total - 195,288

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Sony response to North American sales numbers......

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/sony-defeats-truman/

This just in from video-game reporting headquarters: Sony may be a consumer electronics giant, but its public relations folks aren’t so powerful when it comes to prognostication. Yesterday, said spinsters made a bold prediction about sales figures for video game consoles that were due out today. Sony said it was confident the figures would show that in July its PlayStation 3 outsold the Xbox 360, made by its chief rival, Microsoft.
The actual figures from NPD Group, a market research firm, did not bear this out. Sony came in third, behind the still piping-hot Nintendo Wii and Sony’s aforementioned chief thorn-in-side, Microsoft.

For the record, NPD reported domestic sales of 425,000 Nintendo Wiis, 170,000 Xbox 360s and 159,000 PlayStation 3s in July. Dave Karraker, the Sony spokesman who predicted the PS3 would overtake the 360, told me that: (1) He was only wrong by a bit, and (2) NPD doesn’t provide an exact count but estimates some portions of the market and (3) No, he would not care to make a prediction about August’s sales figures.

The results, in fairness to Sony, do represent a marked improvement relative to Microsoft. In June, PS3 sales were roughly half of Xbox 360’s 200,000.

Could it be that Sony’s price cut has shaken loose consumer demand?
While Microsoft and Sony battled it out for second place in the next-generation console competition, Nintendo continues to ride its less powerful processor, simpler graphics and gyration-inspiring game controller to fad-defying results. Nintendo’s July sales bested its June figures by around 50,000 units, further stumping analysts and video game software companies who keep waiting for the Wii to peter out.
At this point, predicting a quick demise for the Wii might not be the wisest maneuver; it’s something even the folks at Sony wouldn’t attempt — at least not this month.

P.S. The overall game market is on the mend, in a big way. Through July, domestic sales of hardware, software and accessories were $7 billion, up from $5 billion for the first seven months of 2006, NPD reported.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Bioware responds to display problem complaints from 360 owners that play on SDTV's.

We understand there has been some concern about the implementation of widescreen mode in BioShock. Hopefully, we can clarify how we’ve chosen to do this.

The first thing we want to make clear is the mode we developed the game on and the optimal mode for playing the game is the widescreen mode. 90% of our development stations were widescreen displays: artists, programmers and designers.


- BioShock was primarily developed and tuned for widescreen mode. Artists and designers worked with widescreen displays and chose a field of view (FOV) that best reflected their intentions with respect to the way the world is perceived, the perceived speed of movement of the player relative to the world and the amount of the world they wanted to be viewed for the best game-play experience. We went through dozens of iterations and finally settled upon a widescreen aspect ratio that best suited the gameplay experience.

- When playing in widescreen modes the game makes use of the full screen resolution, and does not crop or stretch a lower resolution image into a wide screen one. For example, at 720p the game renders natively to the full 1280×720 resolution.

- Once this FOV was established, we chose to keep exactly the same horizontal FOV for standard def displays, so as not to in any way alter the gameplay experience.

- Instead of cropping the FOV for 4:3 displays and making all 4:3 owners mad in doing so, we slightly extended the vertical FOV for standard def mode: we never wanted to have black bars on people’s displays. (This way, everybody is happy…) This does mean that people playing on a standard def display see slightly more vertical space, but, this does not significantly affect the game-play experience and, we felt that it best served our goal of keeping the game experience as close as possible to the original design and art vision on both types of displays. Reports of the widescreen FOV being a crop of the 4:3 FOV are completely false.

One thing we can assure you that all these decisions were made with the best interests of the game in mind. We didn’t save any money or development time by choosing this set of parameters. We did what we thought was the best thing for the game: developing and optimizing it for widescreen displays, and making the decision not to do the usual crop for 4:3 displays. As a consumer, you certainly have the right to disagree.

We understand that not all users might not be happy with these choices and we will be looking into options for allowing users to adjust FOV settings manually. But as we mentioned earlier, changes to video game code do not happen in minutes or hours. We appreciate your understanding.

[Dr. Sak]

I am one of the 170,000 XBOX360s!!

[Booj]

I am one of the 170,000 XBOX360s!!

I'm one of the 13,000 in Canada.

[Anthony]

i don't believe those DS and PS2 numbers are accurate. there is no way that many people are still buying a console that is over a decade old. what kid is asking for a PS2 - they want the latest and greatest.

[stevew]

i don't believe those DS and PS2 numbers are accurate. there is no way that many people are still buying a console that is over a decade old. what kid is asking for a PS2 - they want the latest and greatest.

The DS numbers are probably accurate. That thing flies off the shelves, especially in certain colors. Someday you will have a little HA and will learn the joy of Pokemon.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

i don't believe those DS and PS2 numbers are accurate. there is no way that many people are still buying a console that is over a decade old. what kid is asking for a PS2 - they want the latest and greatest.

Hell, they're still selling 87,000 GBA's. That's some serious sales for a system that's been replaced by an even more popular DS system.

[Pumpy Tudors]

i don't believe those DS and PS2 numbers are accurate. there is no way that many people are still buying a console that is over a decade old. what kid is asking for a PS2 - they want the latest and greatest.
Sure, nobody's buying a PS2 for their teenager. Hell, those kids probably already have PS2. Maybe a parent will buy one for a 6-year-old kid or something, though. The parent sees a PS2 for $150 or whatever it costs and this metric buttload of games at $20 apiece. On top of that, not only does the kid have games to play, but the parent will probably find some cheap games to play on it, too.

For anyone who finally wants to get into playing video games, the PS2 is a perfect place to start if they're on a budget. Even if someone can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a next-gen console, many Wii games are $50, and new 360/PS3 games are generally $60. I'd think that a lot of people want to build up a library of cheaper games that'll provide just as much entertainment.

I can't speak for the 200k+ people who bought a PS2 in August or July or whenever this was, but if my wife didn't already have a PS2, I probably would've bought one within the past few months, just because there are so many games out there.

We've just never seen anything like the PS2 before. Games are still coming out for it, and I hear that they're really good games, too. If somebody loves video games and can afford to put money toward that hobby, is there any reason not to have a PS2 in your home at this point?

[Pumpy Tudors]

Hell, they're still selling 87,000 GBA's. That's some serious sales for a system that's been replaced by an even more popular DS system.
Dola

Yeah, it's the GBA sales that I really don't understand. Why are people still buying them? I have a good friend who programs homebrew stuff for the GBA, but there aren't that many people out there who want it for that purpose.

[stevew]

There are thousands of GBA titles, it's really no suprise how many units still sell. I believe the new Micro one is around 50-60 bucks, for parents who want to get their kids something cheap, it's great. Of course the DS is a ton better, but not everyone wants to drop 130 bucks so their kids can play some games.

[MikeVic]

There are thousands of GBA titles, it's really no suprise how many units still sell. I believe the new Micro one is around 50-60 bucks, for parents who want to get their kids something cheap, it's great. Of course the DS is a ton better, but not everyone wants to drop 130 bucks so their kids can play some games.

A lot of parents are very uninformed too. I recall a conversation between a mom and kid at EB once going something like this:

Kid: "But mom, if I get this one (DS) I can play Mario (some GBA game he was holding) and these other games too (referring to DS games)."

Mom: "That one costs more money. You can play your Mario game on this one (GBA), so you're getting this one."

[terpkristin]

Console sales numbers for the United States as reported by NPD...

Wii - 425,000
DS - 405,000
PS2 - 222,000
PSP - 214,000
360 - 170,000
PS3 - 159,000
GBA - 87,000

425k Wii's sold this past month and I STILL can't find one on my store shelves?
Glad I've had my pink DSL for awhile. ;)

Next console purchases will likely be a PS3 and a PSP2000. Probably the latter first, there need to be some games worth playing on the PS3 for me to buy that.

/tk

[Eaglesfan27]

i don't believe those DS and PS2 numbers are accurate. there is no way that many people are still buying a console that is over a decade old. what kid is asking for a PS2 - they want the latest and greatest.


I work with lots of poor families that can't afford a PS3/360/Wii who have told me that they are buying/have bought a PS2 this year.

[SackAttack]

Also, I see plenty of people at work whose "fat" PS2's have either given up the ghost, or have one or two fingers still holding on. They come in looking at a PS3, see the $499 price tag, look at the slim PS2 at $129 and go "Y'know...that'll tide us over for a couple years."

Happens every day.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Also, I see plenty of people at work whose "fat" PS2's have either given up the ghost, or have one or two fingers still holding on. They come in looking at a PS3, see the $499 price tag, look at the slim PS2 at $129 and go "Y'know...that'll tide us over for a couple years."

Happens every day.

I've STILL got my 'fat' PS2 from the release day. Just keeps running. I use it for GH games right now.

[Eaglesfan27]

I've STILL got my 'fat' PS2 from the release day. Just keeps running. I use it for GH games right now.

My release model died after 3 years. I'm on my 3rd one (bought earlier this year.) I'm sure that accounts for some of the PS2 sales as well.

[MJ4H]

My fat PS2 still works fine, too. Got it a couple of months after release. I play GT3 on it from time to time.

[Chubby]

My release day fat PS2 still works fine too...

[SackAttack]

I've STILL got my 'fat' PS2 from the release day. Just keeps running. I use it for GH games right now.

Mine conked out in early 2002, but the fat I got in January '02 is still workin' like a champ. And, yeah, I use it mostly for Guitar Hero and Disgaea.

You know, though, speaking of Disgaea, I think I finally played a PSP game I'd *like* to see ported to the PS2 last night. Jeanne d'Arc. It's sort of a manga-style reimagining of the Hundred Years' War. turn-based Strategy/RPG, but with a time component - you have a fixed number of turns each battle to achieve victory.

I mean, I'd like to see the port mainly for volume reasons. The manga part of the game isn't subtitled, and the volume can only go so high on the PSP, so I feel like I'm missing part of the story when I play.

[Neuqua]

Count me in on release fatty PS2's that are still running strong.

[terpkristin]

My fat PS2 still works fine, too.

Ditto.

/tk

[bronconick]

Mine's been going since February '02 as well. I'm one that would probably replace it instead of looking at a 360 or PS3.

[spleen1015]

My release PS2 would freeze during the GoW cutscenes, so I bought a new silver one and traded the fat into EB.

[KWhit]

I wanted to bring this fun conversation over to this thread because the July thread is dead...

Mizzou said this:

Considering I already complimented this game quite extensively in this thread, is that a good assumption?

About this quote:

It's a very good game and will help the 360 without a doubt.

I think my definition of "complimenting it quite extensively" is different than yours. Especially when these are your other posts about it:



This evasive answer from a Bioware developer is fueling rumors that a Bioshock PS3 game is already being developed. Likely will only be a timed exclusive for the 360.........

Review lead times are getting ridiculous. You wonder how much they rush to be the very first site to review the game at the cost of not fully exploring all of the features of the game. Lair was a similar situation in that it was reviewed 2 weeks before the release date, only to find that it was delayed.
I'm certainly not implying in any way that the early Bioshock scores aren't accurate. I just don't know why sites can't hold off a bit and explore the game more.

I agree with you about Lair only because the expectations are ridiculously high. It will still sell quite a few units and will be a good game, but there's no way it could reach the hype.
In regards to niche titles, you could say that about most any games. The 360 is a no purchase for me because I simply don't like FPS games. The big games (Halo, Gears, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Lost Planet) are all in that genre. I think that there a large segment of U.S. users that are nearly exclusively sports and FPS gamers and Microsoft plays to that crowd (I don't think most in this forum are in that segment).
Sony has a huge segment of gamers that are into what those gamers would call 'niche' games. While not overly popular here, there are gamers here in the U.S. that enjoy those games and the overseas gamers absolutely eat them up. There's a reason that Sony is selling extremely well elsewhere despite the higher price. People love those games. Until Sony is able to get the games flowing a bit more and drop the price, the adoption rate is going to be a bit slower in the U.S.

Bioshock for the PS3 is quickly becoming the worst-kept secret in the video game industry. Someone dug through the demo code and found multiple PS3 references in the development code. Not sure why the developer left it in there, but they might as well just confirm it's coming. My guess is that MS wants them to hold off to avoid losing any sales to people who own a PS3 or are still trying to decide which console to get.

I posted that it likely would be coming to the PS3 a couple of months ago. I was just following that up with more information. There's a separate thread discussing the demo I believe.


Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27
Guys on OS pointed this out and sure enough I just checked my box. The Bioshock box says right on the front that the game is only on the PC and 360. It doesn't have a disclaimer that says "right now" or any other sort. Therefore, I seriously doubt Bioshock will ever come to the PS3. It was originally slated for the PS3 (before MS reportedly gave 2k a large sum of money to support development) in 06 which might also explain that bit of code being left in which fueled this rumor.

When the developers were asked about it, they gave the 'we just want to concentrate on the current development platforms' answer without any absolute denial. Certainly not confirmation, but definitely not denial either. I'd be floored if this game wasn't out for the PS3 by the holidays next year, if not sooner. Time will tell.


Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27
Actually, the developers have already shot this down. The code was developed on the unreal engine and that code has references to the PS3. Maybe this is just them covering their asses, until they are allowed to announce a PS3 version, but this "evidence" has already been shot down. I'm willing to bet that if MS has the developers holding off on announcing a PS3 version until after Christmas that this game will be part of the reason for a nice boost to 360 sales.

I don't think there's any question that they're covering their a$$ on this. With that said, it won't come out until next spring at the very earliest. It's a very good game and will help the 360 without a doubt. I spoke to someone who had preview/review copies of both Halo 3 and Bioshock and they said that Halo 3 may sell more games due to name alone, but that he had no doubt that Bioshock was the better game.


Bioware responds to display problem complaints from 360 owners that play on SDTV's.

Quote:
We understand there has been some concern about the implementation of widescreen mode in BioShock. Hopefully, we can clarify how we’ve chosen to do this. ETC....


So we're talking about the best reviewed game in recent memory (maybe ever) and your only comments about it have been either:

This game is being reviewed way too early (aka-don't believe the hype).
This is TOTALLY coming out on the PS3! (no need to buy a 360 to play it)
Widesreen is nerfed.
I am now convinced that you are a paid Sony messageboard marketer.

[SackAttack]

BioWare?

Methinks somebody's a wee bit confused there.

Bioshock is many things, but an RPG ain't one of 'em.

[KWhit]

BioWare?

Methinks somebody's a wee bit confused there.

Bioshock is many things, but an RPG ain't one of 'em.

Whatchoo talkin bout Willis?

[Coder]

BioWare isn't the maker of BioShock.. BioWare is, on the other hand, makers of Mass Effect, a highly anticipated title coming this fall if I'm not completely mistaken without checking my notes.

[Marc Vaughan]

i don't believe those DS and PS2 numbers are accurate. there is no way that many people are still buying a console that is over a decade old. what kid is asking for a PS2 - they want the latest and greatest.

Actually I disagree with this wholeheartedly, DS's are really popular with kids and indeed a fair few adults.

The PS-2 is still very much in demand for kids, my kids (13, 8, 4 years old) would prefer me to get him a PS-2 rather than a PS-3 simply because they doesn't like many of the next gen console games (that goes for a 360 also incidentally).

This is I'd expect often the case, factor in that kids can get a lot more games for their pocket money with a PS-2 and you'll see why they're still popular choices imho ...

*I've been trying to persuade myself to get another 360 since I emigrated but apart from the LiveArcade stuff there is only one game which truly appealed to me on the platform ... and I got Overlord on PC ...

[SackAttack]

Whatchoo talkin bout Willis?

Gotta run so I can't elaborate, but look at your final Mizzou quote, then read Coder's (accurate) post. That should clear it up.

[Eaglesfan27]

Whatchoo talkin bout Willis?

It was Mizzou BB Fan who referred to it as a Bioware title in one of the quotes of his that you posted. Also, I agree with your conclusion.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

So we're talking about the best reviewed game in recent memory (maybe ever) and your only comments about it have been either:

This game is being reviewed way too early (aka-don't believe the hype).
This is TOTALLY coming out on the PS3! (no need to buy a 360 to play it)
Widesreen is nerfed.
I am now convinced that you are a paid Sony messageboard marketer.

That would be a great assumption if anything you just said in the above quote were what I said.

My comments on being reviewed early were not Bioshock specific. I specifically went out of my way to state that I wasn't implying that the Bioshock review was inaccurate in any way, only that the review of games far before release was a troubling trend, which several people agreed with.

I never stated that people should not buy a 360. I'm not sure why being excited about a game coming out on all systems now qualifies as a knock on the 360. All PS3 owners would love to have Bioshock right now, but that's not happening. With that said, I'm not sure why there's such angst toward PS3 owners being excited to get it in a few months.

I posted the situation about Bioshock's widescreen issue because I know there are some people on this forum that have a 360 on a SDTV. I fail to see how letting them know about the situation is a problem. I'm personally glad that people posted information about the slow frame rates in the EA Sports games because it saved me from the possibility of purchasing an inferior game. You can be sure that I didn't bitch that they were Microsoft paid marketers.

I suppose that posting the comments from the SCEA president this morning with his weak response about the sales figures was another shameless Sony promotion. You don't have to like the stuff I post. If you see stuff that causes concerns or gives information about Sony or MS products, you should post it as well. It adds to the discussion.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Gotta run so I can't elaborate, but look at your final Mizzou quote, then read Coder's (accurate) post. That should clear it up.

Yes, I obviously mismatched companies. My mistake.

[KWhit]

That would be a great assumption if anything you just said in the above quote were what I said.

My comments on being reviewed early were not Bioshock specific. I specifically went out of my way to state that I wasn't implying that the Bioshock review was inaccurate in any way, only that the review of games far before release was a troubling trend, which several people agreed with.

I never stated that people should not buy a 360. I'm not sure why being excited about a game coming out on all systems now qualifies as a knock on the 360. All PS3 owners would love to have Bioshock right now, but that's not happening. With that said, I'm not sure why there's such angst toward PS3 owners being excited to get it in a few months.

I posted the situation about Bioshock's widescreen issue because I know there are some people on this forum that have a 360 on a SDTV. I fail to see how letting them know about the situation is a problem. I'm personally glad that people posted information about the slow frame rates in the EA Sports games because it saved me from the possibility of purchasing an inferior game. You can be sure that I didn't bitch that they were Microsoft paid marketers.

I suppose that posting the comments from the SCEA president this morning with his weak response about the sales figures was another shameless Sony promotion. You don't have to like the stuff I post. If you see stuff that causes concerns or gives information about Sony or MS products, you should post it as well. It adds to the discussion.

All in all, there has been nothing wrong with the individual items that you have posted about Bioshock. It's just the one-sidedness of it all. You can point to a post here or there where you don't bash the 360 or its games, but they're the .01% of your posts about the console war. It's just so transparent that it's hysterical. I honestly think you're a paid shill.

[KWhit]

BioWare?

Methinks somebody's a wee bit confused there.

Bioshock is many things, but an RPG ain't one of 'em.


Ah. Gotcha. I never noticed that.

[Atocep]

All in all, there has been nothing wrong with the individual items that you have posted about Bioshock. It's just the one-sidedness of it all. You can point to a post here or there where you don't bash the 360 or its games, but they're the .01% of your posts about the console war. It's just so transparent that it's hysterical. I honestly think you're a paid shill.


This is why I pretty much quit reading these threads about a month ago. Mizzou's posts are predictable and people seem to bite at each one of them. The threads went from decent discussion to an endless cylce of fanboyisms and contradictions.

[KWhit]

Yeah. I am in the market for a new console, so I'm interested in the news, but he's turned me off the PS3 pretty much single-handedly.

[Glengoyne]

i don't believe those DS and PS2 numbers are accurate. there is no way that many people are still buying a console that is over a decade old. what kid is asking for a PS2 - they want the latest and greatest.

Hey I just bought my PS2 a month or two ago.

I'll buy a WII, probably within the next year, but I'm simply not going to throw down serious cash for a game console any time soon. The PS2 numbers show that I'm not alone.

I was in line at Best Buy the other night, and the guy in front of me plunked down a thousand dollars on a PS3 and some games. He then loaded his wife and two young kids into a faded 15 year old Buick, and drove home. My reaction "What the hell is he thinking throwing down a grand on a video console? He has clearly got better things he could be spending his money on" I'm in reasonably good financial position, but no way I can justify that kind of expense.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Yeah. I am in the market for a new console, so I'm interested in the news, but he's turned me off the PS3 pretty much single-handedly.

LOL......if you seriously had your decision changed by a guy posting a bunch of news/discussion about consoles, you seriously need to reevaluate your decision-making processes. I can honestly say that I enjoy reading all of the point/counterpoints, but making that kind of a decision based on this kind of a thread is borderline nutty.

The only decisions I would use this thread for are game decisions where you find out there are major glitches in a game.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

All in all, there has been nothing wrong with the individual items that you have posted about Bioshock. It's just the one-sidedness of it all. You can point to a post here or there where you don't bash the 360 or its games, but they're the .01% of your posts about the console war. It's just so transparent that it's hysterical. I honestly think you're a paid shill.

Very interesting that you didn't say a thing about the fact that I've posted a lot of things that were just as critical of Sony, their PR and some of their games. Your criticisms are just as transparently biased. If you're going to make a tally list, at least do it well.

Methinks Sony would toss my ass to the curb because I'm the worst paid shill ever given the criticism I've handed out against them. I don't think either side is doing a very good job right now over. MS should have put a dagger in this console war already given Sony's slow start. Sony had one of the worst console launches since Neo-Geo (and that's saying something). It's a Dumb and Dumber war.

[KWhit]

LOL......if you seriously had your decision changed by a guy posting a bunch of news/discussion about consoles, you seriously need to reevaluate your decision-making processes.

Seriously?

Well, thanks for the advice, but I can use whatever I want in my buying decisions. One of my main turn-offs toward Sony is their marketing strategy - which up until this point has included lies, lies, and more lies from official Sony executives, fake blogs, offensive YouTube videos, dead goat carcasses, and I suspect, paid messageboard fanbois.

My continued loss of respect for Sony has definitely contributed to my decision-making process.

[CraigSca]

LOL......if you seriously had your decision changed by a guy posting a bunch of news/discussion about consoles, you seriously need to reevaluate your decision-making processes...but making that kind of a decision based on this kind of a thread is borderline nutty.


Really? I use this board for a lot of things and one of them is getting advice from everyone regarding the advantages and disadvantages of certain products. All input helps.

It almost sounds like you doth protest too much regarding Kwhit's assertion about you being a paid fanboi. Just an observation.

[sterlingice]

Oh, c'mon. As much as I know you guys love hitting the Mizzou BB Fan pinata, this is just borderline stupid. Before KWhit clarified his statement, claiming that "I base my buying decisions on the fact that I don't like one person on a message board" is just ludicrous.

SI

[sabotai]

It almost sounds like you doth protest too much regarding Kwhit's assertion about you being a paid fanboi. Just an observation.

It's an assertion (at least the Sony fanboy part of it) that a lot of people here have made. And every time they do, he comes back with the same "but I've been critical of Sony too!" response. He doesn't get that we are not buying his act. He posts the occasional bad thing about Sony or the occasional good thing about Microsoft to try and appear unbiased, but 9 times out of 10, his posts easily fall under "good spin for Sony" and/or "bad spin for MS".

He hasn't single-handedly made it so that I don't want a PS3 (I will once it has some good games), but he has single-handedly made it pretty much impossible to discuss consoles on this forum.

[sabotai]

Oh, c'mon. As much as I know you guys love hitting the Mizzou BB Fan pinata, this is just borderline stupid. Before KWhit clarified his statement, claiming that "I base my buying decisions on the fact that I don't like one person on a message board" is just ludicrous.

SI

I stopped buying Sterling Ice Cream products because I hate you, so it does happen. :p

[sterlingice]

I stopped buying Sterling Ice Cream products because I hate you, so it does happen. :p

:(

(wait, there's such a thing as "Sterling Ice Cream"?)

SI

[MikeVic]

VOTE MIZZOU B-BALL FAN

Sorry, I'm staying out of these threads now but couldn't resist. :)

[Deattribution]

Oh, c'mon. As much as I know you guys love hitting the Mizzou BB Fan pinata, this is just borderline stupid. Before KWhit clarified his statement, claiming that "I base my buying decisions on the fact that I don't like one person on a message board" is just ludicrous.

SI

Agreed, If a person on a messageboard is going to prevent you from using a product you're going to live a helluva sheltered life cause if you think Mizzou is bad, there are thousands of forums out there with millions of people who are much worse.

As much as everyone would like to blame one person, these threads are train-wrecks because everyone cries they're unbiased while making completely biased statements (or enough statements about a particular side that it's obvious they're biased).

[sabotai]

:(

(wait, there's such a thing as "Sterling Ice Cream"?)

SI

A company called Sterling makes ice cream stuff, like freezers. Or at least used to. Dunno if they are still around.

Found this on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23627728@N00/170215546/

[Fidatelo]

I don't believe MizzouBBF is a paid schill, only because he was equally 1-sided and oblivious to logic in his quest to have the Penguins relocated to KC.

I do agree that he has made discussing the console war intolerable here though. I now only skim his posts for non-biased info (like new GH3 tracks), and I completely ignore any post that quotes one of his posts (as it is simply a pointless logic-based retort that will be responded to with another ridiculous "read what I wrote, that's not really what I'm saying even though it is totally what I'm saying and I'll say it again in different words" post.

[Fidatelo]

Dola

I will credit MizzouBBF with introducing me to the Bill Harris blog though, that got added to my Google Reader and has some interesting moments.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Seriously?

Well, thanks for the advice, but I can use whatever I want in my buying decisions. One of my main turn-offs toward Sony is their marketing strategy - which up until this point has included lies, lies, and more lies from official Sony executives, fake blogs, offensive YouTube videos, dead goat carcasses, and I suspect, paid messageboard fanbois.

My continued loss of respect for Sony has definitely contributed to my decision-making process.

Once again, your bias shows through in this post despite claiming to be unbiased. You're more than happy to point out Sony's screw-ups (which I totally agree with), yet the fact that Microsoft totally lied (and still does to some degree to this day) that they have a major quality issue with most of their consoles is just as bad of a situation, if not worse. Sony's biggest failing is their executive's mouths. Microsoft kept their mouths shut knowing that they sold millions of customers a product that was inherently flawed.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I don't believe MizzouBBF is a paid schill, only because he was equally 1-sided and oblivious to logic in his quest to have the Penguins relocated to KC.

You forgot about Nashville as well. :)

[KWhit]

Once again, your bias shows through in this post despite claiming to be unbiased. You're more than happy to point out Sony's screw-ups (which I totally agree with), yet the fact that Microsoft totally lied (and still does to some degree to this day) that they have a major quality issue with most of their consoles is just as bad of a situation, if not worse. Sony's biggest failing is their executive's mouths. Microsoft kept their mouths shut knowing that they sold millions of customers a product that was inherently flawed.


"Lied" and "kept their mouths shut" are two different things. I'm sure you'll be able to go dig up something where MS wasn't truthful, but my perception is that Sony executives have been lying through their teeth, whereas MS executives are mostly keeping quiet.

The quality issue is huge, and it really does suck that so many people are having problems with their consoles. MS's silence and non-denials speak volumes, but I don't recall nearly as many times they have been caught lying as Sony has.

And by the way, you calling me biased is pretty funny.

I'm not biased toward one or the other. I don't know why anyone would be, unless Bill Gates killed your dog or something. I really am trying to figure out which one is best for me. Surprisingly, I'm finding that the PS3 would be the better value for me. Just too bad it doesn't have any great games out for it.

[KWhit]

So here's where I am on my thinking on which to buy:

PS3:
Overall, the pros here are the built in BluRay player (which it seems is more likely to win this format war if there is a real winner), built in wireless, and a more powerful processor.

Drawbacks
Not very many games out right now and the pipeline doesn't look quite as strong as the 360's.


XBox 360 (Pro version):
Lots of current games interest me (Bioshock, Dead Rising, Gears of War, Crackdown, NCAA 2007). And the pipeline looks pretty good, especially with Halo coming up.

Drawbacks
I hate having to buy a separate wireless adapter. And that by itself bumps the price up to around $430. That's only $70 less than a 60 gig PS3. So for that $70 I can get a much bigger hard drive and a BluRay player. And if I add a Live membership, that's almost a wash. Oh yeah, and it could die on me with the RROD. At least the warranty is pretty good on this now.



For what I want, it seems that clearly the PS3 is a "cheaper" option now, but I worry about the game selection which is what I would be getting it for. Hmmm.... Difficult decision. Anything I'm missing?

[terpkristin]

So here's where I am on my thinking on which to buy:

PS3:
Overall, the pros here are the built in BluRay player (which it seems is more likely to win this format war if there is a real winner), built in wireless, and a more powerful processor.

Drawbacks
Not very many games out right now and the pipeline doesn't look quite as strong as the 360's.


XBox 360 (Pro version):
Lots of current games interest me (Bioshock, Dead Rising, Gears of War, Crackdown, NCAA 2007). And the pipeline looks pretty good, especially with Halo coming up.

Drawbacks
I hate having to buy a separate wireless adapter. And that by itself bumps the price up to around $430. That's only $70 less than a 60 gig PS3. So for that $70 I can get a much bigger hard drive and a BluRay player. And if I add a Live membership, that's almost a wash. Oh yeah, and it could die on me with the RROD. At least the warranty is pretty good on this now.



For what I want, it seems that clearly the PS3 is a "cheaper" option now, but I worry about the game selection which is what I would be getting it for. Hmmm.... Difficult decision. Anything I'm missing?

One other thing, aside from the RROD you already mentioned (and which is why I'd wait til the holiday sesaon to buy a 360 if that's what I were to buy...), if you plan on doing much downloadable content (I'm talking games, movies/tv shows, etc, i.e. taking advantage of what MS already offers and what Sony is saying they're going to offer), the 360 has the added drawback that have you have to buy a special 360-specific hard drive if you run out of room on the 20 gigs you start with...and being Microsoft, they rape you for it.

PS3's you can add on any peripherals just like you would for a computer (more or less), so it's easier to "upgrade."

Also, most of the PS2 games (I want to say all, but I'm not sure) are currently backwards compatible via hardware in the PS3, so if you don't already have a PS2, and you want to play PS2 games, you're in luck (and there are a PLETHORA of fantastic games for the PS2).

/tk

[terpkristin]

Dola,

Forgot to add some stuff.

1. It depends what kinds of games you want to play/if you want any console exclusives, too. For example, Madden 08 is 60 fps on the 360, only 30 fps on the PS3. However, it's being reported that FIFA 08 is going to be 60 fps on both (which leads me to think that the 09 iterations will be 60 fps on both, too). So if you really want good Madden, then maybe the 360 is for you. Or if you want BioShock or Halo, then a 360 is the way to, but if you want Haze or some of the other PS3 exclusives, then that's that...

2. The current PS3's are the ones "guaranteed" to have the hardware backwards compatability. There is a lot of speculation that the next issuance of the PS3 will have that remove, and backwards compatability will be software based, like it is currently on the 360. So if playing PS2 games is important to you, it's worth keeping that in mind...

3. Just for reference, I do consider myself to be more of a Sony fangirl than a Microsoft fangirl. I currently have a PS2, 360 (with problems), DS, and PSP. I got the 360 mostly for some of the exclusives (Halo being the biggest). I haven't picked up a PS3 yet but I plan on it, especially since there will be a way to download on the PS3 and transfer to the PSP. I haven't decided which system I'll buy Oblivion for, other than that I know I won't get it on the PC. ;)

/tk

[Deattribution]

For what I want, it seems that clearly the PS3 is a "cheaper" option now, but I worry about the game selection which is what I would be getting it for. Hmmm.... Difficult decision. Anything I'm missing?

I have a frustratingly amount of freeze ups with the 360, to the point that I returned NCAA08 because basically every other game or so would freeze the system... It seems mostly EA games, with only an ocassional one with some other graphic intense games. I've always kept the system in a well ventilated area including at one point pretty close to a fan with no luck.

I know some have used and recommended the intercooler for it, but I've also read many negative things about it such as some people having the intercooler literally melt onto their system, and the fact that one of the versions draws power from the main system. It's also not a supported accesorry by Microsoft (or whatever they call it). It's still been something I've been tempted to try just because having some games (like NCAA) unplayable is frustrating but that's also an additional 20 bucks and the potential damage it could do to the system.

I currently don't own a PS3 but I figure I'll just wait til I do then try playing the games I cannot currently play on my 360 on the PS3. So far the experiences with the 360 for me and other people I know has been very YMMV which is disappointing, some people have no troubles at all, others have a paperweight or something inbetween (like me).

[Eaglesfan27]

FWIW, I've had the intercooler for well over a year and it hasn't melted onto my system or done any harm. I still have never had a freeze up (even with a 8 hour session of Bioshock yesterday which is graphic intensive) and I think the intercooler is helping my cause.

[SackAttack]

Eagles, my only issue with the intercooler is the fact that it draws its power from the Xbox power supply. That means either the system isn't getting all the power it needs for the stuff on board (including the system fans), or that the power brick is being drawn upon for additional power, which increases the risk of the brick overheating...and that overheating is just as likely to cause a freeze-up as the system itself doing so.

[spleen1015]

I've had the intercooler for about 15 months and haven't had a single lock up or any issues.

[Deattribution]

FWIW, I've had the intercooler for well over a year and it hasn't melted onto my system or done any harm. I still have never had a freeze up (even with a 8 hour session of Bioshock yesterday which is graphic intensive) and I think the intercooler is helping my cause.

And that's why when I first started having problems with it I had thought about buying one cause I had read here that others had their issues addressed with it but then I read the amazon.com user reviews and I became a bit more reluctant, again it seems YMMV.

[sabotai]

I don't have the intercooler and haven't had any issueas. I keep the 360 in an open area, but I do sometimes feel the heat coming off of it so if you have it an area with limited space, it'll probably be a problem. It's also kind of loud. I never noticed it because my PC was louder, but I just got a new PC that is really quiet and now I really notice the 360 when it's on.

[MikeVic]

A friend got a 360 for Bioshock last week, and bought a couple of original XBox games to play too. Fable and the Street Fighter collection. Fable ran piss-poor. There was slow-down, and it just ran weird and choppy. Street Fighter was more pixelated than it should have been.

I really just want a next-gen console for Rock Band, and considering I'd have to pay for XBox Live and buy a wireless adapter thing... the PS3 as an option has crept back up again. The 360 has some other games I want to play, but I'd also want to play original XBox and PS2 games that I never got the chance to play. If the 360 can't emulate games very well, that's a big blow to me.

Anyone know if most games run like Fable?

[sabotai]

Anyone know if most games run like Fable?

The only 2 original XBox games I've played on the 360 have been Forza 1 and Jade Empire. Both of them ran fine. I was thinking of grabbing Fable: The Lost Chapters, too (only $9 on Amazon). I loved the game and have been itching to play it again (traded in the original awhile back) Guess I'll take that off my wish list and just wait for the sequel to get done.

[KWhit]

Can somebody remind me what the big confirmed exclusives for each that are going to be released in the next 6 months?

[SackAttack]

Confirmed exclusives that have been announced for each system:

Xbox 360: Blue Dragon, Halo 3, Eternal Sonata, Mass Effect, Ace Combat 6, Project Gotham Racing 4, Too Human, Alan Wake, Lost Odyssey, Splinter Cell: Conviction

PS3: Lair, Ratchet & Clank, Folklore, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Heavenly Sword, Final Fantasy XIII (although who knows when it will land), MGS4, Tekken 6, SingStar

I didn't list Haze for PS3, even though I'm pretty sure it's an exclusive, because EBGames still says it's coming out for 360. Too Human and Alan Wake are *supposed* to be coming in the specified timeframe, but we'll see what we see.

I don't expect them to hit in the next six months either, but I'm listing FFXI and MGS4 just because Mizzou would flay me if I left them off the list. ;)

[KWhit]

Cool. Thanks.

[Eaglesfan27]

A friend got a 360 for Bioshock last week, and bought a couple of original XBox games to play too. Fable and the Street Fighter collection. Fable ran piss-poor. There was slow-down, and it just ran weird and choppy. Street Fighter was more pixelated than it should have been.

I really just want a next-gen console for Rock Band, and considering I'd have to pay for XBox Live and buy a wireless adapter thing... the PS3 as an option has crept back up again. The 360 has some other games I want to play, but I'd also want to play original XBox and PS2 games that I never got the chance to play. If the 360 can't emulate games very well, that's a big blow to me.

Anyone know if most games run like Fable?


There is a list on microsoft's website of which games are Backwards Compatible. Fable is backwards compatible and runs very well on our 360. It's one of my wife's regular games when she gets on the 360.

Edited to add: Ninja Gaiden Black and Winning Eleven 9 both run well for me in BC mode as well. Those are the only BC games that I really play.

[Fidatelo]

Why is Rockband not coming out for the Wii? Does anyone know if there are plans to release it a few months later or something?

It seems to me that games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero shouldn't really need any of the extra graphics horsepower offered by the 360/PS3 to be just as enjoyable.

[Big Fo]

Why is Rockband not coming out for the Wii? Does anyone know if there are plans to release it a few months later or something?

I've read that this is indeed the case. Not sure when though.

[SackAttack]

Probably a twofold thing.

1) Rock Band in bundle form is going to be close to as much as the Wii itself. That's going to be a tougher sell when a significant portion of the Wii audience is still new to games than to a pair of audiences used to spending bank on the hobby. Put another way - if you spent $600 on your machine, you're going to have less of a problem spending $200 on the game than if you spent $250 on the machine. It's just psychological.

2) Only one USB port, and that's in the back of the system. What gets it? The microphone or the drums? If I'm not mistaken, both the drums and the mic are going to be wired on the PS3 and Xbox 360, probably for timing-based reasons.

[Fidatelo]

I've read that this is indeed the case. Not sure when though.

That would be awesome! The Rock Band track list seems to blow GH3 out of the water (never mind the other instruments, etc).

*crosses fingers*

[Fidatelo]

Probably a twofold thing.

1) Rock Band in bundle form is going to be close to as much as the Wii itself. That's going to be a tougher sell when a significant portion of the Wii audience is still new to games than to a pair of audiences used to spending bank on the hobby. Put another way - if you spent $600 on your machine, you're going to have less of a problem spending $200 on the game than if you spent $250 on the machine. It's just psychological.

2) Only one USB port, and that's in the back of the system. What gets it? The microphone or the drums? If I'm not mistaken, both the drums and the mic are going to be wired on the PS3 and Xbox 360, probably for timing-based reasons.

Your first point makes sense, but I'm confused on the second point. Couldn't a person just get a little USB hub (or even have one included in the rock band bundle)?

[sterlingice]

The big reason they mentioned, I think it was in Game Informer, is that there was no hard drive for downloadable content as that's going to be a huge part of the game. Tho I'm not sure why using the Wii's SD card would be that much different.

SI

[SackAttack]

Your first point makes sense, but I'm confused on the second point. Couldn't a person just get a little USB hub (or even have one included in the rock band bundle)?

The USB port until recently didn't even work with keyboards. I don't know what kind of utility it has at this point in time for actual controllers.

[SackAttack]

The big reason they mentioned, I think it was in Game Informer, is that there was no hard drive for downloadable content as that's going to be a huge part of the game. Tho I'm not sure why using the Wii's SD card would be that much different.

SI

Wii won't load any game-related stuff off the SD card right now. Game saves, VC games, etc. I really wish they'd change that at least for VC games.

[Big Fo]

Yeah, Nintendo has to do something about the storage at some point. Neo geo games are due on the VC soon, WiiWare games in 2008, people are going to need more space.

[MJ4H]

2) Only one USB port

I would imagine it is possible to use the gamecube memory card slots for a microphone or something. That's what you do for Mario Party 7 and it works fine. Making it work in Wii mode might be a trick, but Id imagine they could pull it off if they wanted.

[SackAttack]

I would imagine it is possible to use the gamecube memory card slots for a microphone or something. That's what you do for Mario Party 7 and it works fine. Making it work in Wii mode might be a trick, but Id imagine they could pull it off if they wanted.

Well, the other thing I can think of is, how does Boogie's microphone work? Does it plug into the Wiimote the way the Classic Controller and other attachments do? That would help some for the mic, and then all you're dealing with is the drums.

[MJ4H]

Yeah I forgot about that. Im fairly certain that either will be done or has been done.

[MikeVic]

I thought the Wii-mote was revealed to have a microphone in it? The space with the speaker is really a two-way instrument...?

[Crapshoot]

Since these seems to be a good place to ask - anyone heard anything about KOTOR 3 (Sack?) KOTOR ranks up there with Civ2 and FM amongst my favorite games of all time, and the announcement of a KOTOR 3 would almost certainly tip me in favor of buying an XBOX 360 (given the Mass Effect is likely to be on that as well).

[SackAttack]

I don't know.

BioWare lately has had this thing about doing great RPGs and then having Obsidian come in to do the sequel. I'd like to see BioWare come back for KOTOR 3, but as they're busy on Mass Effect, they may not have any interest.

I'm not sure I'd have any interest in a 3rd KOTOR if Obsidian lets LucasArts push them around like they did 2-3 years ago, for that matter.

[Eaglesfan27]

There are rumors that KOTOR 3 is being developed and will be announced after Mass Effect, but they don't make sense to me. I can see why they wouldn't want to release them too close to each other, but the idea that they would hold off announcing it doesn't make sense to me. However, you can find links to the rumors by simply googling KOTOR 3 and checking out the first few links.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Surprisingly, I'm finding that the PS3 would be the better value for me. Just too bad it doesn't have any great games out for it.

I own a PS3 and Wii right now. I'm actually more peeved at the lack of quality games for the Wii than the PS3 right now. I see several games that I'm interested in for the PS3 in the next couple of months. For the Wii, I only saw one game (Brunswick Bowling) that I was interested in. Unfortunately, I heard from someone who has a review copy that it's pretty disappointing, which is EXTREMELY unfortunate. I was really looking forward to a career bowling game on the Wii. The Japanese baseball game will now likely be the game I look forward to at this point.

[spleen1015]

Has anyone picked up Stranglehold?

I played the demo over the weekend and liked it some. My son will really like it.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

FYI for the European posters that own a PS3......Lair and Folklore are both being offered pre-order for 15 pounds (normally 40 pounds). It has been confirmed that it is not a price mistake.

Lair
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Lair-PS...141703&sr=1-11

Folklore
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Folklor...141703&sr=1-12

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Gamespot is reporting that Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will be a free download.

http://uk.gamespot.com/events/leipzig07/story.html?sid=6177157&pid=942026&tag=top_stories;story;2

[TroyF]

FYI for the European posters that own a PS3......Lair and Folklore are both being offered pre-order for 15 pounds (normally 40 pounds). It has been confirmed that it is not a price mistake.

Lair
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Lair-PS...141703&sr=1-11

Folklore
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Folklor...141703&sr=1-12

That's simply horrific news. The quality of both games is probably pretty poor. When you start discounting games by over 50% before they've even been released, it's not a good thing. I was really looking forward to Lair. Ugh.

The Wii has been in a drought. No question about it. I'm hoping Tiger '08 is actually decent for it. I can't believe they screwed up the bowling title so badly.

Haven't come up with a list in the last few weeks, but I'd say that of the 10 games I'm looking forward to most, it'd probably be something like 6x 360, 3x PS3, 1x Wii. (Metroid) I'm hoping some sleeper hits come in and save the Wii, but I'm not sure how it'll play out over the next few months. The 360 has the highest likelihood of "surprise" hits simply because of how many games will be released for the system.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Rumors abound that the Halo Wars demo will be out this week on XBL.

Also, the PSN version of Warhawk will be available at 12:00 AM EST tonight. It's $40. The DL version will take up around 800 MB of space on your HDD. Also, Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo HD remix will be available (wife was a big fan of this game).

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

That's simply horrific news. The quality of both games is probably pretty poor. When you start discounting games by over 50% before they've even been released, it's not a good thing. I was really looking forward to Lair. Ugh.

Uh, considering they're the only retail outlet to do that, it might be just a bit premature to jump off the bridge. I'm still not totally sure that someone didn't f-up some pricing here. But someone said that they got an e-mail saying that price is legit, so who knows. I just find it amusing that a price break by one site suddenly means the sky is falling.

I'd fall over backwards to get either of those games at that price. It would certainly seem as though this price drop is going to be awfully good PR for these two games for Sony. The pre-orders on these two games have gone through the roof. These two games are going to have a big release number in Europe solely because of this deal.

[TroyF]

Uh, considering they're the only retail outlet to do that, it might be just a bit premature to jump off the bridge. I'm still not totally sure that someone didn't f-up some pricing here. But someone said that they got an e-mail saying that price is legit, so who knows. I just find it amusing that a price break by one site suddenly means the sky is falling.

I'd fall over backwards to get either of those games at that price. It would certainly seem as though this price drop is going to be awfully good PR for these two games for Sony. The pre-orders on these two games have gone through the roof. These two games are going to have a big release number in Europe solely because of this deal.

Look Mizzou, no retailer willingly reduces the price of a game that is expected to sell like hotcakes. Much less by over 50%. Combined with the last minute delay of Lair and you have all the signs of a major letdown.

I'm dissapointed in this as Lair was a game I was hoping would be good. I hope I'm wrong and it's as good as Bioshock. But my guess is the game is going to be a major league dissapointment based on the things that have come out so far.

Would I buy the game at that cost? Probably. There has to be some amount of fun in flying a dragon around and setting fire to villages. But this was a game that was pointed at as being better than that. It had some solid buzz around it and nothing points to the game living up to any of the buzz.

Go ahead and tell me I'm an idiot or a PS3 hater or whatever the hell you want. I WANT this game to be great. I just don't like what I'm seeing right now.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Look Mizzou, no retailer willingly reduces the price of a game that is expected to sell like hotcakes. Much less by over 50%. Combined with the last minute delay of Lair and you have all the signs of a major letdown.

I'm dissapointed in this as Lair was a game I was hoping would be good. I hope I'm wrong and it's as good as Bioshock. But my guess is the game is going to be a major league dissapointment based on the things that have come out so far.

Would I buy the game at that cost? Probably. There has to be some amount of fun in flying a dragon around and setting fire to villages. But this was a game that was pointed at as being better than that. It had some solid buzz around it and nothing points to the game living up to any of the buzz.

I'm simply stating that it's a bit overboard to jump on a game that hasn't even been reviewed yet because one overseas retailer dropped the price. It's just as nutty for me to make a statement that because the game is selling for $60 every other place except Amazon UK that it must be a great game because every retailer is charging full price.

I'm not guaranteeing anything on what the final product will be like as no one even has a copy of the final build at this point. I'm just saying that a price drop by one retailer before a game is released is no indication of a game's quality. If this price drop occurred a week or two after release, I would agree wholeheartedly that it was a bad sign. In this case, it's pretty premature to make any assumptions.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

This is a pretty complicated article that I thought the resident developers may be able to assist in translating. My general understanding is that it highlights the tricks that 360 and PS3 developers use to make sub-HD level games look HD......

http://gamers-creed.com/?p=423


Zenji Nishikawa has uploaded the latest issue of his article series about 3D game technologies. The subject of this article is the concern about sub-HD rendering in the next-gen consoles. It also contains anonymous developers’ quotes, all of which has been translated by One.


* The RAM bandwidth of Xbox 360 GPU is almost equal to RADEON X1600 XT and shared with CPU by UMA.
* Without the eDRAM pixel processor doing 4xMSAA, the fillrate of the GPU core itself is 4 billion texel/sec and almost equal to GeForce 7600 GT.
* While the Xbox 360 has a 3.5 times broader bandwidth than the original Xbox, 720p pixels require a 3 times broader memory bandwidth. It leaves only 0.5 times headroom which is insufficient for multiple texture lookups by complex shaders.
* eDRAM is implemented to mitigate the impact of the low memory bandwidth. But FP10 + 2xMSAA requires Predicated Tiling.
* Tile rendering has many performance demerits.
o In games with many chracters like N3 the cost of overlapped geometry grows large unless LOD is implemented.
o Lens effect, refraction, HDR effects such as bloom and glare, and other frame buffer filtering cause overlapped drawing near tile boundaries.
o Objects that cross boundaries can’t use the cache efficiently.
o CPU L2 cache locking is practically unusable.
* Since textures are stored in the shared 512MB RAM, regardless of the eDRAM size or use of tile rendering, texture lookup consumes the shared memory bandwidth. Normal mapping and shadow mapping require many texture lookups.
* So the last resort is to use Display Controller to upscale the image without using tile rendering, for example rendering FP10-32bit / 960*540 / 2xMSAA / 32bit Z (8MB).

Developer A: Even 2xMSAA is not required by Microsoft anymore.

Developer B: FP10-32bit / 880×720 / 32bit Z / 2xMSAA (9.9MB) rendered to look right when upscaled to 16:9 is also possible.

Developer C: You can render it in a certain low-res then to display it you can create a 720p frame by your own shader. In converting the original low-res frame into a 720p frame by the shader you can do color dithering, which may result in smooth color expression or alleviation of the resolution deficiency in FP10.

Developer D: At any rate I want to reduce jaggies. Since the eDRAM pixel processor is penalty-free upto 4xMSAA, it will be interesting if it’s fully exploited. Though it becomes 640×480 with 4xMSAA and FP10-32bit if it’s not tile-rendered, aliasing-free images will be totally different from what we have seen in older games.

Developer E: If you think HDR rendering as a premise, PS3 is worse than Xbox 360.
Since PS3 doesn’t support FP10-32bit buffer, if FP16-64bit HDR is used it requires twice the bandwidth of Xbox 360 but PS3 doesn’t have eDRAM like Xbox 360 to mitigate the impact. It’s possible that pseudo-HDR employed in Xbox and DX8 that use a conventional 32bit buffer (8bit int per ARGB) is often used in PS3. Besides the display controller may be used to upscale sub-HD images to a HD resolution.

Developer F: As for resolution I think if it’s modest it’s OK. Since RSX in the PS3 is a shader monster, adding more information to a pixel by executing ultra-advanced shader and then antialiasing it completely must make it look more real. I’d like to give priority to the reality charged in one pixel rather than to HD resolution.

[TroyF]

I'm simply stating that it's a bit overboard to jump on a game that hasn't even been reviewed yet because one overseas retailer dropped the price. It's just as nutty for me to make a statement that because the game is selling for $60 every other place except Amazon UK that it must be a great game because every retailer is charging full price.

I'm not guaranteeing anything on what the final product will be like as no one even has a copy of the final build at this point. I'm just saying that a price drop by one retailer before a game is released is no indication of a game's quality. If this price drop occurred a week or two after release, I would agree wholeheartedly that it was a bad sign. In this case, it's pretty premature to make any assumptions.

Guess we have differing views. Amazon isn't some small, hole in the wall mom and pop. I can't see them lowering the price on a game before the release if there wasn't some bad indicators out there. If it were a surefire hit with a ton of positive buzz, they'd take the full price on the game and get as much as they could for it.

What it smells like to me is a bomb of a game and they are trying to get as many sales as they can as quickly as they can.

We'll see soon enough which one of us is right. If you are, I'll be the happy owner of the game and will be playing it most nights. If I am, we'll all have cheap coasters available to us within the next few weeks.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Guess we have differing views. Amazon isn't some small, hole in the wall mom and pop. I can't see them lowering the price on a game before the release if there wasn't some bad indicators out there. If it were a surefire hit with a ton of positive buzz, they'd take the full price on the game and get as much as they could for it.

What it smells like to me is a bomb of a game and they are trying to get as many sales as they can as quickly as they can.

We'll see soon enough which one of us is right. If you are, I'll be the happy owner of the game and will be playing it most nights. If I am, we'll all have cheap coasters available to us within the next few weeks.

The problem with that theory is that Folklore has been getting very good reviews and has sold well over in Japan. It doesn't fit the mold your describing at all, nor should it require a price drop to get good sales in Europe. If it were just Lair that had a price drop, I'd be more inclined to agree with your point.

FWIW......you aren't a gamer if you don't have a decent collection of cheap coasters. :)

[SackAttack]

My guess is that it has to do with the fact that Folklore is going to be more of a niche game. I was incredibly impressed with what I played at E3...but the fact is that it's not a system seller. £15 makes it a must-buy, IMO, and will probably do good things for its overall sales numbers...but I think that kind of niche status is why Amazon would discount it.

It certainly hasn't got anything to do with its quality (IMO).

Lair, on the other hand...I'm a skeptic.

[MJ4H]

That's simply horrific news. The quality of both games is probably pretty poor. When you start discounting games by over 50% before they've even been released, it's not a good thing. I was really looking forward to Lair. Ugh.

The Wii has been in a drought. No question about it. I'm hoping Tiger '08 is actually decent for it. I can't believe they screwed up the bowling title so badly.

Haven't come up with a list in the last few weeks, but I'd say that of the 10 games I'm looking forward to most, it'd probably be something like 6x 360, 3x PS3, 1x Wii. (Metroid) I'm hoping some sleeper hits come in and save the Wii, but I'm not sure how it'll play out over the next few months. The 360 has the highest likelihood of "surprise" hits simply because of how many games will be released for the system.

You should really give Mario Strikers Charged a try if you haven't.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

My guess is that it has to do with the fact that Folklore is going to be more of a niche game. I was incredibly impressed with what I played at E3...but the fact is that it's not a system seller. £15 makes it a must-buy, IMO, and will probably do good things for its overall sales numbers...but I think that kind of niche status is why Amazon would discount it.

It certainly hasn't got anything to do with its quality (IMO).

Lair, on the other hand...I'm a skeptic.

And I'd agree with that if the games were priced the same worldwide, but they're not at this point. Lair and Folklore are both full price everywhere else. Terribly confusing pricing, but it's great for UK gamers. I'm just praying that similar prices come to the U.S.

Lair is just a really interesting topic at this point. So far, we've got a couple of sites who played a previous build who say that the game has some issues. By the same token, there are some sites that have received what they claim is the latest retail build and they have much different impressions, saying that it's actually a very good game. Lair is going to be one of those games that ends up having its fate determined by the hands-on impressions by consumers just after retail launch. The reviews have been too much of a mixed bag at this point. Toss in that no one knows which build the various previewers/reviewers are playing and it's really hard to take anything from them.

[Deattribution]

Guess we have differing views. Amazon isn't some small, hole in the wall mom and pop. I can't see them lowering the price on a game before the release if there wasn't some bad indicators out there. If it were a surefire hit with a ton of positive buzz, they'd take the full price on the game and get as much as they could for it.

What it smells like to me is a bomb of a game and they are trying to get as many sales as they can as quickly as they can.

We'll see soon enough which one of us is right. If you are, I'll be the happy owner of the game and will be playing it most nights. If I am, we'll all have cheap coasters available to us within the next few weeks.

There is absolutely no precedent for this, Amazon sells hundreds of complete piece of shit games for full price. Given the fact it's in the market which isn't getting a price drop - I'd say it has more to do with boosting PS3 sales than game quality.

[Marc Vaughan]

Guess we have differing views. Amazon isn't some small, hole in the wall mom and pop. I can't see them lowering the price on a game before the release if there wasn't some bad indicators out there. If it were a surefire hit with a ton of positive buzz, they'd take the full price on the game and get as much as they could for it.

Actually online you often find the most popular games discounted heavily by sites for two reasons:

* Loss leaders, they know people shop around and so if they're 'cheap' they might get a new customer who comes back.
* They buy such games in bulk and so might get a lower deal price on them and then attempt to pass that onto customers who then feel they got a good deal and come back again.

(and yes I do have to admit I'm biased in this as FM is generally discounted online each year by the sellers and I'd prefer to think its because its popular rather than being a 'cheap coaster' ;))

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Actually online you often find the most popular games discounted heavily by sites for two reasons:

* Loss leaders, they know people shop around and so if they're 'cheap' they might get a new customer who comes back.
* They buy such games in bulk and so might get a lower deal price on them and then attempt to pass that onto customers who then feel they got a good deal and come back again.

(and yes I do have to admit I'm biased in this as FM is generally discounted online each year by the sellers and I'd prefer to think its because its popular rather than being a 'cheap coaster' ;))

Yep, it appears that TroyF wasn't correct in his assumption and that Marc Vaughan hit the nail on the head. Amazon completely sold out of both games last night. This morning, they have them back in stock and they are now listed at full price once again. It would appear that this was a 'you snooze, you lose' situation.

[spleen1015]

These last 2 weeks would have been hell on the wallet if I wasn't playing WoW with all of my time.

Bioshock
Metroid Prime 3
Blue Dragon

Stranglehold next week.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

More game articles and info.......

First, Gamestop has sent out e-mails to Lair preorders that their games will be shipped on August 30th. Interesting as the game was not supposed to come out this week. Not sure if that was in error or if it will actually be shipped.

Next is an interview with NC Soft's CEO. Most interesting part that I noticed is that they will be offering both subscription-based and free MMO's for the PS3. I honestly never play the subscription-based ones, but I'd definitely give the free ones a try.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=28059

Interview with Uncharted developer discussing many of the game's features..........

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/28/pax-07-joystiq-interviews-sonys-sam-thompson-about-uncharted/

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

These last 2 weeks would have been hell on the wallet if I wasn't playing WoW with all of my time.

Bioshock
Metroid Prime 3
Blue Dragon

Stranglehold next week.

This month is going to be excellent for both 360 and PS3 owners. Halo 3 should obviously be added to your 360 list. Warhawk (released today), Lair, and Heavenly Sword are all coming out in the next couple weeks for the PS3. Great time to be a gamer. Makes you wonder why they couldn't spread these releases out a bit more, but we all know the reason for that.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

FYI.......for those of you looking for a HD media player, there's two good offers through Amazon right now. You can purchase the 60 GB PS3 for $472 shipped with 8 Blu-ray movies. If you already own a 360, you can get the HD-DVD add-on player for $170 shipped with 8 HD-DVD movies.

The deal is a combo deal with has the standard 5 movie deal that has always been available. In addition, Amazon is tossing in 3 more HD movies from their stocks. The movies you can get through the Amazon deal include 300, Casino Royale, The Departed, and several other movies that are excellent on the HD formats.

You can find the info for both deals on http://www.slickdeals.org.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Video of Halo Wars demo now available:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/24172.html

[Eaglesfan27]

An EA developer slamming the PS3's ease of development:

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/1767.html

"The truth is the PS3’s tools and the way it works just sucks. The truth is they are both virtually the same in terms of hardware when it comes to how powerful they are, maybe the PS3 has a few different things that makes it a bit more advance, and Sony has this idea that it is designed for optimal development but that’s a load of crap. In the last generation we would make the game for PS2 and then port it over to Xbox, but because Xbox was easier to develop for, we could actually enhance the title a little if we wanted to. The case with this generation is different, now we make the game for 360 first and then port it over to PS3, but we really don’t have the time to mess with how the PS3 works to really add to much more. It will change in the future, but for now it sucks.”

[TroyF]

Yep, it appears that TroyF wasn't correct in his assumption and that Marc Vaughan hit the nail on the head. Amazon completely sold out of both games last night. This morning, they have them back in stock and they are now listed at full price once again. It would appear that this was a 'you snooze, you lose' situation.

Appears is a key word here. Let's see how the game plays.

Heavenly Sword looks like a keeper. I'm not sold on Lair yet.

I'm going to hold off on Metroid til I beat Bioshock at least once (maybe twice) :)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

An EA developer slamming the PS3's ease of development:

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/1767.html

"The truth is the PS3’s tools and the way it works just sucks. The truth is they are both virtually the same in terms of hardware when it comes to how powerful they are, maybe the PS3 has a few different things that makes it a bit more advance, and Sony has this idea that it is designed for optimal development but that’s a load of crap. In the last generation we would make the game for PS2 and then port it over to Xbox, but because Xbox was easier to develop for, we could actually enhance the title a little if we wanted to. The case with this generation is different, now we make the game for 360 first and then port it over to PS3, but we really don’t have the time to mess with how the PS3 works to really add to much more. It will change in the future, but for now it sucks.”

Yeah, several publications have noted that his comments show just how little effort EA has put into PS3 development. It's really not too shocking that other developers are raking EA over the coals concerning their sub-par releases on the PS3. Those developers correctly smell blood in the water and a huge door of opportunity. They openly admit that they're more concerned about ease of conversion as opposed to maximizing the potential of a game on each system.

Sales figures for EA indicate a drop in sales again this year. It seems like everyone except EA seems to understand that they need to change the way they're doing business. The only thing they've ever done right is marketing, and even that isn't having nearly the effect it has had in past years. Few businesses would tell you it's a good idea to put out negative press on any console that you publish products for. It's incredibly interesting that a console they slammed sold over 500,000 units while a console they openly supported that has 3x the user base sold 50,000 units. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that EA is making some blatently stupid moves.

Also, the fact that it's an anonymous comment from a Tiburon developer speaks volumes. I'm guessing that EA execs would have some harsh words for this developer if they ever found out who it was. Making comments like these is borderline stupidity.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Appears is a key word here. Let's see how the game plays.

No, it was incorrect. If Lair ends up being a bad game, that doesn't mean that your assertion that the price drop was because it was a bad game was correct. It just means that Lair is a bad game.

[TroyF]

No, it was incorrect. If Lair ends up being a bad game, that doesn't mean that your assertion that the price drop was because it was a bad game was correct. It just means that Lair is a bad game.


Unless you have suddenly become an executive for Amazon.com and know why the price drop was put in place, you have NO F'n idea as to why they made the move they made. Nor do I. Nor does Marc Vaughan. Nor does President Bush. All of us are making guesses. My guess is as good as anyone elses. I don't pretend to have all the answers. I have opinions and state them.

You could be right. Or you might not. Your assertion that I'm incorrect is based soley on guesswork and suppositions.

[KWhit]

Does anybody have any idea where you can find a 360 premium version with HDMI at a retail store? I'm considering buying one, but haven't seen the new HDMI versions anywhere.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Does anybody have any idea where you can find a 360 premium version with HDMI at a retail store? I'm considering buying one, but haven't seen the new HDMI versions anywhere.

It's hit and miss. You'll have to go to the retail location and physically check the package to see if it's HDMI.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Unless you have suddenly become an executive for Amazon.com and know why the price drop was put in place, you have NO F'n idea as to why they made the move they made. Nor do I. Nor does Marc Vaughan. Nor does President Bush. All of us are making guesses. My guess is as good as anyone elses. I don't pretend to have all the answers. I have opinions and state them.

You could be right. Or you might not. Your assertion that I'm incorrect is based soley on guesswork and suppositions.

I'm going to guess that Marc Vaughan has a pretty good idea how these things work. It certainly made a lot of sense. I'm going to go with his version over your version of 'no one knows why retail outlets drop prices on products'.

[TroyF]

I'm going to guess that Marc Vaughan has a pretty good idea how these things work. It certainly made a lot of sense. I'm going to go with his version over your version of 'no one knows why retail outlets drop prices on products'.


That sounds like a fine plan to me. I have no problems with you siding with Marc's version. He's a smart guy. In this case, he's a smart guy with an opinion.

See how simple that is? We agree to disagree. I don't need to pretend I have all of the facts and you don't need to pretend you have all of the facts because neither of us do.

Aint life grand.

[stevew]

Does anybody have any idea where you can find a 360 premium version with HDMI at a retail store? I'm considering buying one, but haven't seen the new HDMI versions anywhere.

I know that amazon and dell both have that specific sku, of course it's not "retail."

Like i was saying in the other thread, if you want to export hdmi into your tv, and then run audio via optical into your receiver, your best bet is going to be the elite instead of the HDMI premium.

[KWhit]

I know that amazon and dell both have that specific sku, of course it's not "retail."

Like i was saying in the other thread, if you want to export hdmi into your tv, and then run audio via optical into your receiver, your best bet is going to be the elite instead of the HDMI premium.

Can you do that and still get audio out of the TV? I don't always want to have to turn my receiver on, especially since it is one hot mo-fo.

[KWhit]

And I don't really want to have to buy the Elite. 450 plus 100 for a wireless connection is outrageous. $550 before you even get your first game? And then $50 for a gold Live account. And I'd buy two games, so we're looking at a cost of $720 right off the bat.

That's incrediby steep. I had a very profitable trip to Vegas last weekend, so I'm considering it, but it's probably still too pricey for me.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Can you do that and still get audio out of the TV? I don't always want to have to turn my receiver on, especially since it is one hot mo-fo.

I may be totally off here, but isn't HDMI both a video and audio input? I know that DVI is video alone. I thought the difference was that the HDMI included audio. If that's the case, then you shouldn't need a receiver. Otherwise, I'm totally off. :)

[KWhit]

I may be totally off here, but isn't HDMI both a video and audio input? I know that DVI is video alone. I thought the difference was that the HDMI included audio. If that's the case, then you shouldn't need a receiver. Otherwise, I'm totally off. :)

I don't have an HDMI input on my receiver, so I would hook my 360 to the TV using HDMI, but would still want to send my audio to my receiver using the adapter. What sometimes happens with doing that though is the TV isn't able to play the sound through HDMI. The audio signal is usually sent through one or the other but not both.

My DVD player works like that, and you have to change a setting on the DVD player's menu to tell it which signal to send. Which sucks, because I'd like to be able to have just the TV on playing sound when my son is watching one of his kiddie movies, but when I want to have true surround sound, I'd have to change some settings to get it to go through my receiver.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I don't have an HDMI input on my receiver, so I would hook my 360 to the TV using HDMI, but would still want to send my audio to my receiver using the adapter. What sometimes happens with doing that though is the TV isn't able to play the sound through HDMI. The audio signal is usually sent through one or the other but not both.

My DVD player works like that, and you have to change a setting on the DVD player's menu to tell it which signal to send. Which sucks, because I'd like to be able to have just the TV on playing sound when my son is watching one of his kiddie movies, but when I want to have true surround sound, I'd have to change some settings to get it to go through my receiver.

Ah, makes sense. I had mine hooked directly into the TV until I recently got a HDMI receiver.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Preview for PES 2008. This one is going to be a must-buy for me. Can't wait for it to come out.

http://ps3.gamespy.com/playstation-3/konami-ps3-soccer-project-untitled/816313p1.html

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Another great game on the way........Silent Hill 5. Always have enjoyed this series. Good article about some of the game's features.........

http://silenthill5.net/2007/08/27/silent-hill-v-egm-article.html

[SirFozzie]

Apparently, even with the price cut and all the X360 problems, the PS3 is still behind the XBox360 in monthly sales.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3162365

[MikeVic]

Apparently, even with the price cut and all the X360 problems, the PS3 is still behind the XBox360 in monthly sales.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3162365

Actually, the piece of news in there that caught my eye was this:

Software wise, things are as expected, with the Guitar Hero franchise continuing to prove its heavyweight status in the music space. Despite the hype behind Rock Band, the Guitar Hero name is more powerful than ever. At E3, Electronic Arts announced a PlayStation 2 version of Rock Band is headed to Europe in early 2008, so even EA is catching onto the fact that a PS3 and Xbox 360 exclusive focus isn't necessarily a sure bet.

Anyone hear more of this? I'd much rather buy this for the PS2 than buy a 360 or PS3 just for the game. But is it only coming out for the PS2 in Europe? And it's not guaranteed that PS2 users have a HDD... I would guess that most don't. So how does downloadable content fit in (as compared to the Wii)?

[CraigSca]

I heard a rumor that the European-only version of Rockband has a much smaller music library to choose from, with the majority of songs coming from "Best of Falco" Vols. 1 & 2.

[MikeVic]

I heard a rumor that the European-only version of Rockband has a much smaller music library to choose from, with the majority of songs coming from "Best of Falco" Vols. 1 & 2.

Please tell me you're joking.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Please tell me you're joking.

Why would anyone joke about something as majestic as Falco: Vol. 1 and 2??????

[Synovia]

You could always buy a reciever that can handle HDMI

[SackAttack]

Actually, the piece of news in there that caught my eye was this:



Anyone hear more of this? I'd much rather buy this for the PS2 than buy a 360 or PS3 just for the game. But is it only coming out for the PS2 in Europe? And it's not guaranteed that PS2 users have a HDD... I would guess that most don't. So how does downloadable content fit in (as compared to the Wii)?

PS2 was huge in Europe, and the PS3 and Xbox 360 are more expensive over there thanks to the exchange rate.

I think it's more like EA's hedging their bets from a financial perspective than really worrying about Guitar Hero.

[Deattribution]

That sounds like a fine plan to me. I have no problems with you siding with Marc's version. He's a smart guy. In this case, he's a smart guy with an opinion.

See how simple that is? We agree to disagree. I don't need to pretend I have all of the facts and you don't need to pretend you have all of the facts because neither of us do.

Aint life grand.

Could you be anymore blatantly ignorant and unwilling to admit you're wrong on this subject?

Everything says this isn't the case (precedent, other stores, the fact that the games are back to full price, and a guy who has video game sales knowledge to name a few) and you're still trying to sugar coat it your way.

Stuff like this is what makes these threads embarrassing.

[gstelmack]

You could always buy a reciever that can handle HDMI

One of my big frustrations right now with consumer electronics is that I have a DVD player, an Xbox 360, and an HD cable box, all of which could potentially use HDMI output (my 360 doesn't 'cause it is older, but would if I rebought it now). And yet most TVs or receivers handle 2 HDMI inputs. The TVs I can live with, but I have yet to find a sub-$1000 receiver with 3 or more HDMI inputs.

[stevew]

I don't have an HDMI input on my receiver, so I would hook my 360 to the TV using HDMI, but would still want to send my audio to my receiver using the adapter. What sometimes happens with doing that though is the TV isn't able to play the sound through HDMI. The audio signal is usually sent through one or the other but not both.

My DVD player works like that, and you have to change a setting on the DVD player's menu to tell it which signal to send. Which sucks, because I'd like to be able to have just the TV on playing sound when my son is watching one of his kiddie movies, but when I want to have true surround sound, I'd have to change some settings to get it to go through my receiver.


Basically you get sound from both sources, the TV and the receiver. I mean, you can buy the optical output thing, but it's 50 bucks separately(comes with hdmi cord). If your TV does optical out, well then I think you'd be okay as well.

It's not a big big deal to me, as the component looks okay, although i'd like to be able to upscale dvd's via hdmi.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

One of my big frustrations right now with consumer electronics is that I have a DVD player, an Xbox 360, and an HD cable box, all of which could potentially use HDMI output (my 360 doesn't 'cause it is older, but would if I rebought it now). And yet most TVs or receivers handle 2 HDMI inputs. The TVs I can live with, but I have yet to find a sub-$1000 receiver with 3 or more HDMI inputs.

I'm really hopeful that the number of HDMI inputs will increase on receivers and prices will go down as more HDTV's, next-gen consoles and HD media players get into the homes. I'd like to add a home theater to my home in a year or two. I really don't want to give up an arm and a leg to get that done completely with HDMI.

[stevew]

I just bought a cheaper Onkyo home theatre for now with 3 component ins, and hopefully in 4-5 years the HDMI version will be affordable. For the room i use it in, it's more than loud enough and it sounds pretty good.

[Big Fo]

Preview for PES 2008. This one is going to be a must-buy for me. Can't wait for it to come out.

http://ps3.gamespy.com/playstation-3/konami-ps3-soccer-project-untitled/816313p1.html

Do you know if Europe and Japan will be getting the games months ahead of the US like in prior releases? If not I would be tempted to import.

On the PS3 I know you can play Japan games in a US/Europe console, US/Europe games on a Japanese console, does the PAL format or anything like that prevent a US PS3 playing a European version game or do games from all three regions work in all three regions?

I would rather import from Europe due to language concerns but would have no problem getting the Japanese version if it came out months earlier...

[SackAttack]

Got a 60 GB PS3 from Sony in the mail today.

Guess it's time to start adding upcoming PS3 games to my GameFly account. The only two I know for sure I want to play this fall are Ratchet and Folklore, though.

[Neuqua]

Got a 60 GB PS3 from Sony in the mail today.


Tough life you live..

[TroyF]

Could you be anymore blatantly ignorant and unwilling to admit you're wrong on this subject?

Everything says this isn't the case (precedent, other stores, the fact that the games are back to full price, and a guy who has video game sales knowledge to name a few) and you're still trying to sugar coat it your way.

Stuff like this is what makes these threads embarrassing.

Last I checked, I was allowed to have my own opinions. I didn't try to "spin" anything my way. I've stated my opinion. You think it's idiotic. Fine. I can live with that. If you can't, I have 4 words of advice for you: Put me on ignore.

[SackAttack]

Tough life you live..

It's a struggle.

[gstelmack]

Tough life you live..

Well, they did have a whole bunch lying around that they were trying to push through the channel but weren't moving all that fast even after a major price cut :D

[SackAttack]

Well, they did have a whole bunch lying around that they were trying to push through the channel but weren't moving all that fast even after a major price cut :D

I just opened it up.

It's a debug unit they sent me.

:eek:

[terpkristin]

I'm actually contemplating breaking down and buying a PS3 this week. My PS2 being fritzy all of a sudden (go figure, I had to say how bomber it's been and it starts going funny), and I'm hoping to get one while they maintain the hardware backwards compatability.

I am such a sucker.

/tk

[TroyF]

Could you be anymore blatantly ignorant and unwilling to admit you're wrong on this subject?

Everything says this isn't the case (precedent, other stores, the fact that the games are back to full price, and a guy who has video game sales knowledge to name a few) and you're still trying to sugar coat it your way.

Stuff like this is what makes these threads embarrassing.

Just another few points on this to close my end out:

1) With apologies to Marc, I cannot remember a single time an FM game has been slashed over 50% off before it was released. I've seen slight cuts, but never that drastic.

2) I'm not sure how I'm making this thread embarrassing because of my opinion on this. I haven't said "Don't buy this game, it's gonna suck" I haven't said "this is a PS3 game, so it certainly sucks" It's been the opposite. I don't like what I'm seeing from the game (a late scratch on the release date, a major distributor slashing the prices by over half, horrible PR on the web sites I've read) But I'm hoping all of that is wrong. I WANT the game. I WANT to fly around on a freakin dragon and set things on fire. I can't think of a better idea for a video game.

It's not like I own 1 console and spend my time commenting on the other two. It's not like I refuse to play games on one console or that I wish any of them fail. I'm one of the only people commenting in this thread that owns all three systems. The more good games released, the happier I'll be.

Even if you think my opinion on this makes me nuttier than a Snickers bar, I think it's a rare thing for me in these threads. If you disagree with that, I STRONGLY urge you to throw me on ignore, cause we just won't get along.

[Deattribution]

If you disagree with that, I STRONGLY urge you to throw me on ignore, cause we just won't get along.

This is always the argument used online, 'it's just my opinion, throw me on ignore if you don't like it'. Okay, I didn't see that one coming... And fyi, I wasn't saying your opinion was embarrassing, just the total unwillingness to admit you were wrong when there is nothing other than your 'opinion' backing it up and everything else pointing to opposite (and you're not the first to do it in these threads).

Anyway. Has anyone found the new 360's readily available yet?

I'm tempted to sell my 360 and a few games and pick up the newer model a week or two later if it would help curve the lock up issues I have basically with all the EA games (Madden and NCCA are virtually unplayable) and the occassional freeze with the rest of the bunch.

[terpkristin]

Anyway. Has anyone found the new 360's readily available yet?

I'm tempted to sell my 360 and a few games and pick up the newer model a week or two later if it would help curve the lock up issues I have basically with all the EA games (Madden and NCCA are virtually unplayable) and the occassional freeze with the rest of the bunch.

New as in the ones with the new chip? I don't think they've started selling/distributing those yet. The ones with the HDMI are hit or miss if you walk into stores...

/tk

[sterlingice]

It's a struggle.

:D

SI

[sterlingice]

An EA developer slamming the PS3's ease of development:

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/1767.html

"The truth is the PS3’s tools and the way it works just sucks. The truth is they are both virtually the same in terms of hardware when it comes to how powerful they are, maybe the PS3 has a few different things that makes it a bit more advance, and Sony has this idea that it is designed for optimal development but that’s a load of crap. In the last generation we would make the game for PS2 and then port it over to Xbox, but because Xbox was easier to develop for, we could actually enhance the title a little if we wanted to. The case with this generation is different, now we make the game for 360 first and then port it over to PS3, but we really don’t have the time to mess with how the PS3 works to really add to much more. It will change in the future, but for now it sucks.”

To be fair, this is from the studio that seems to have the most idiotic programmers in the industry for someone as large as they are. This is the only group that couldn't figure out how to eliminate lag times on the Gamecube, for instance. Or has a plethora of bugs... in console games. Never mind the fact that they figured it was just easier to cough up money for exclusivity than actually work to improve games. So, let's take it with a grain of salt.

SI

[TroyF]

This is always the argument used online, 'it's just my opinion, throw me on ignore if you don't like it'. Okay, I didn't see that one coming... And fyi, I wasn't saying your opinion was embarrassing, just the total unwillingness to admit you were wrong when there is nothing other than your 'opinion' backing it up and everything else pointing to opposite (and you're not the first to do it in these threads).

Anyway. Has anyone found the new 360's readily available yet?

I'm tempted to sell my 360 and a few games and pick up the newer model a week or two later if it would help curve the lock up issues I have basically with all the EA games (Madden and NCCA are virtually unplayable) and the occassional freeze with the rest of the bunch.

That's just it, I haven't been proven wrong yet. Just because 5 people disagree with my opinion doesn't mean I'm off base. I have no issue admitting I'm wrong, but just because Marc said so doesn't make it wrong. (no offense Marc, you're still my favorite game developer) If you have facts from inside the Amazon board room, please post em. If not, say my opinion is idiotic, but don't act as though you have the golden opinion and can't be disagreed with.

As for the new 360's, they aren't in the retail chain yet. My guess is they'll be in stores for fourth quarter. I'd say that in all probability you are looking at October.

[Richard Weed]

This may have been covered in another thread (July console sales numbers, etc.), but how do you have the numbers for August when August isn't done yet?

[SackAttack]

Basically the thread pops up in, say, August with the July numbers.

It's really weird nomenclature, but that's how they've been named so far. shrug.

[dawgfan]

Basically the thread pops up in, say, August with the July numbers.

It's really weird nomenclature, but that's how they've been named so far. shrug.
No, that only started in the last couple of threads - usually they've been named correctly.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

No, that only started in the last couple of threads - usually they've been named correctly.

I changed the title to make it semi-correct and make it thoroughly confusing all at the same time. :)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

For those that have a PS3 and enjoy multiplayer gaming, Warhawk is a must-buy. I put in a couple of hours last night and really had a blast. I'm not sure I'm all that good at it, but I had fun even when I was getting blasted away. I've also been really happy to see no lag in the gameplay, as it was a pretty major problem in the beta.

The reviews have been very good, with most being in the 8.5-9.0 range. I purchased the downloadable version for $40 as I already had a Bluetooth headset. Download size is around 800MB.

[TroyF]

For those that have a PS3 and enjoy multiplayer gaming, Warhawk is a must-buy. I put in a couple of hours last night and really had a blast. I'm not sure I'm all that good at it, but I had fun even when I was getting blasted away. I've also been really happy to see no lag in the gameplay, as it was a pretty major problem in the beta.

The reviews have been very good, with most being in the 8.5-9.0 range. I purchased the downloadable version for $40 as I already had a Bluetooth headset. Download size is around 800MB.

I really love that you can use the bluetooth on the PS3. Overall, the PS3 looks to be the more rock solid console in terms of construction, noise, hardware features. MS just destroys them on the software end. Better software, better online experience, easier menus, etc. Still think Sony has fallen to far behind to catch up at this point, but we'll see what they do.

As for Warhawk, I only see two reviews at gamerankings. One a 6.5, the other an 8.5. The 8.5 review is interesting to me, read the last line:

understand that Warhawk is engaging, addictive, reasonably long-lasting fun. It's just not quite $40 worth.

This is one of those things that drives me nuts about review scores. An 8 to 10 game should be well worth the money you paid for it, the best of the best. A 7 game should be a solid, well above average game with a few flaws. A 4-6 range should be an average game with the severity of the flaws determining the range. 3 or under should be essentially unplayable garbage.

Here we have a guy who reviews a game at 85% and it's not quite worth the $40. Are you kidding me?

Nothing against the game. It's one I will probably pick up at some point. First I have to work my way through Bioshock and Metroid and then maybe actually play Madden a bit more. The game looks pretty fun though.

When is Ace Combat 6 coming out for the 360?

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

As for Warhawk, I only see two reviews at gamerankings. One a 6.5, the other an 8.5.

Metacritic.com has 6 reviews up so far (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/warhawk). Only one review was scored lower than 80, which is the one you cited. The praise/criticisms on the reviews in general are pretty valid.

It's definitely not a 6.5 game by any stretch. Their main complain was that it was too expensive for an online only game. They cut $20 off the price and tossed in a very well reviewed headset into the retail version. If that's not good enough, wait for a price drop, but it's not a reason to render a bad review. Gameplay should be the major consideration and it's well done in Warhawk.

[TroyF]

Metacritic.com has 6 reviews up so far (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/warhawk) (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/warhawk%29). Only one review was scored lower than 80, which is the one you cited. The praise/criticisms on the reviews in general are pretty valid.

It's definitely not a 6.5 game by any stretch. Their main complain was that it was too expensive for an online only game. They cut $20 off the price and tossed in a very well reviewed headset into the retail version. If that's not good enough, wait for a price drop, but it's not a reason to render a bad review. Gameplay should be the major consideration and it's well done in Warhawk.


Don't doubt it at all. From everything I'm reading, it sounds like a 7 to 7.5. Good, solid game, but not a classic either.

Price isn't a consideration for me personally. The issue for me is time. I still have about half of Bioshock to go through and then Metroid will be up. That's probably another 20-30 hours worth of gaming (or more). By the time I'm done with them, it'll be close to Heavenly Sword and the hockey games. 2 weeks after that it's Halo 3. A week after that it's NBA2K8 and PGR4.

Add into this the fact that a good % of weekends and nights will be eaten up for football and it's simply a game that came out at the wrong time for me.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Out of 6 reviews, only one review score was lower than an 80.

From everything I'm reading, it sounds like a 7 to 7.5.

Alright there, Captain Fuzzy Math. :)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Sony released a statement that states that the warehouse supply of the 60 GB machines is now gone. Only retail chains now hold the remaining stock. Statement also hints that a price drop on the 80 GB machine may occur in the near future.............

http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=131768

Sony elaborated on previous comments made about 60GB PS3 inventory stock on Wednesday, confirming that only retail supply of the $499 machine remains and suggesting that the expected 80GB price drop is imminent.

80GB PS3 bundle to drop to $499?
"We no longer have any inventory in SCEA warehouses. All inventory has been purchased and shipped to retailers," Sony's Dave Karraker said in an email.

"We don't have visibility as to if that is on their store shelves or in their warehouses at this time. However, based on inventory reports from our retailers, there is ample supply still left in the channel."

On Tuesday, it was revealed that Sony's online inventory had been fully depleted. In July, after slashing the PS3 price by $100, the company said that the now discontinued 60GB PS3 would be available for several months. At that point, Sony alluded that they may also reduce the price of the $599 80GB PS3 to $499 as many analyst expect.

"We won't be making any further announcements regarding our PS3 model hardware strategy in North America until the 60GB model is exhausted and market conditions are evaluated," the company said at the time

[TroyF]

Alright there, Captain Fuzzy Math. :)

Read my opinion of reviews above. I don't care that the guy rated the game as an 8.5, I care that he stated it wasn't worth the $40. In my mind that's a 7 to 7.5. (and that isn't the only one of the 6 reviews to state that)

If we want to get into semantics, I notice you said that most sites have the game as an 8.5-9.0 game. If by 3 of 6 sites having it scored like that is "most", you are correct.

I'm sure the game is good. But it doesn't look like it's "classic" good. To get into the Bioshock, Metroid, Heavenly Sword, hockey game battle, it's going to take better than that.

If the PS3 were my only gaming system, this game would be purchased tonight. It's not, so it won't. :)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Read my opinion of reviews above. I don't care that the guy rated the game as an 8.5, I care that he stated it wasn't worth the $40. In my mind that's a 7 to 7.5. (and that isn't the only one of the 6 reviews to state that)

If we want to get into semantics, I notice you said that most sites have the game as an 8.5-9.0 game. If by 3 of 6 sites having it scored like that is "most", you are correct.

Here's the scores thus far that I've got. Certainly not anywhere close overall to the 7 that you claim (which it should be noted that you haven't even played). The numbers speak for themself............

Warhawk:

PSM3 90/100
Yahoo Games 4/5
IGN 8.8
Ripten 8.7
Game Informer 8.25
GamePro 4/5
EGM 8.5, 7, 8.5
Edge 8/10
Gamereactor 7/10
PSM 6.5/10

[BrianD]

Not to take sides, but it would make sense to "normalize" review scores before talking about them. A review of 8/10 means a much different thing for a company which reviews games between 6-10 and a company which uses the full 1-10.

Just throwing that out there before you guys go through too much review-score math.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Not to take sides, but it would make sense to "normalize" review scores before talking about them. A review of 8/10 means a much different thing for a company which reviews games between 6-10 and a company which uses the full 1-10.

Just throwing that out there before you guys go through too much review-score math.

Hence the reason I cited Metacritic (82 overall). I agree that it's still a somewhat imperfect art, but it gives a general score that can be compared to games that were reviewed using similar methods. Anything above 80 on Metacritic is a pretty good score for a video game.

We can quibble over a point here or there, but his implication that the game is a 7 without having even played the game when the general review scores are at least a point higher, is way off. If I came on here and said that Bioshock was likely an 8 based on some stuff I read in the reviews that rated it a 90 but said some critical things about the game, I'd get lynched by this group. It's a stupid comment with no basis whatsoever, much like his comment critical of the Lair price drop.

[Pumpy Tudors]

why yall aint playin stuntman ignition man! yall arguing over some game wit a damm dragon and yall ignorin tha hottest game to drop since wii cookin mama

man 4get yall. imma go home tonite and jump over some lava on my bike. holla!

aight peace

[TroyF]

Here's the scores thus far that I've got. Certainly not anywhere close overall to the 7 that you claim (which it should be noted that you haven't even played). The numbers speak for themself............

Warhawk:

PSM3 90/100
Yahoo Games 4/5
IGN 8.8
Ripten 8.7
Game Informer 8.25
GamePro 4/5
EGM 8.5, 7, 8.5
Edge 8/10
Gamereactor 7/10
PSM 6.5/10


Are you just trying to pick a fight or are you daft? I stated multple times that I don't give a damn what the score is because the review gives me a better idea. When a guy rates a game at 8.5 and then says it isn't worth the $40 he spent on it, I don't personally rate the game at an 8.5. I explained, in pretty solid detail, how I score games. If you score the game a 15 out of 10 and end your review by stating "it's not worth the money," I slide your score down to a 7. Understand? Do you need it spelled out more clearly than that? Should I put a spotlight up in the sky?

I've stated my reasons. Disagree with those? Great. Make a case against me. Don't post review scores after I've already told you why I think some of them are wacked.

For the record, I've also stated I'd buy the game if it wasn't for so many good games out now or if I owned only one system. I'm not bashing the game by saying it's a 7 to 7.5 on my scale. On MY scale that's a pretty darned good game that's worth a look. I apologize that my scale isn't in line with yours and that you didn't take the time to read why I have differences with review scores of a lot of gaming sites. I'll make sure to bold that opinion and put it in 40 point font next time so you see it.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

why yall aint playin stuntman ignition man! yall arguing over some game wit a damm dragon and yall ignorin tha hottest game to drop since wii cookin mama

man 4get yall. imma go home tonite and jump over some lava on my bike. holla!

aight peace

:D :D

Uh, the dragon game is Lair, not Warhawk.

[Pumpy Tudors]

:D :D

Uh, the dragon game is Lair, not Warhawk.
man all them games is the same. i dont see yall jumpin lava and shit. stuntman ignition 4 lyfe

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Some clarification regarding Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. It will not be a free download as previously reported by gaming sites. Also, there is an advantage to getting the retail version of the game as it will have damage modeling, whereas the PSN version of the game will not. 16 player online racing will be available.

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/816/816592p1.html

[Bee]

Are you just trying to pick a fight or are you daft? I stated multple times that I don't give a damn what the score is because the review gives me a better idea. When a guy rates a game at 8.5 and then says it isn't worth the $40 he spent on it, I don't personally rate the game at an 8.5. I explained, in pretty solid detail, how I score games. If you score the game a 15 out of 10 and end your review by stating "it's not worth the money," I slide your score down to a 7. Understand? Do you need it spelled out more clearly than that? Should I put a spotlight up in the sky?

I've stated my reasons. Disagree with those? Great. Make a case against me. Don't post review scores after I've already told you why I think some of them are wacked.

For the record, I've also stated I'd buy the game if it wasn't for so many good games out now or if I owned only one system. I'm not bashing the game by saying it's a 7 to 7.5 on my scale. On MY scale that's a pretty darned good game that's worth a look. I apologize that my scale isn't in line with yours and that you didn't take the time to read why I have differences with review scores of a lot of gaming sites. I'll make sure to bold that opinion and put it in 40 point font next time so you see it.

I don't know Troy, when I take those numbers and average them I don't get a 7 either.





;) :D

[Kodos]

Sometimes I think these threads are just for folks who like to argue.

[terpkristin]

Back on topic a bit....
:p

Does anybody know if the 80 GB PS3's that they're selling right now still have the chip in them that makes the PS3 backwards compatible with older PS games? I can't remember what the chip is called, but basically it allows hardware compatability instead of relying on it in software.

Help?

/tk

[Deattribution]

Sometimes I think these threads are just for folks who like to argue.

Only certain people.

Luckily that the review didn't say the game was worth a $1000 and Amazon still did a 50% price drop.



TK - the way I understood it is that the 80gig has software emulation instead of the ee chip to cut cost.

[Deattribution]

dola

yeah here is the link confirming it.


http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160917

[stevew]

Back on topic a bit....
:p

Does anybody know if the 80 GB PS3's that they're selling right now still have the chip in them that makes the PS3 backwards compatible with older PS games? I can't remember what the chip is called, but basically it allows hardware compatability instead of relying on it in software.

Help?

/tk


The 80 gig does not have the emotion engine chip.

[TroyF]

Only certain people.

Luckily that the review didn't say the game was worth a $1000 and Amazon still did a 50% price drop.



TK - the way I understood it is that the 80gig has software emulation instead of the ee chip to cut cost.

1) You are correct. No emulation chip.
2) You read as well as Mizzou. Congrats.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

The 80 gig does not have the emotion engine chip.

Yeah, I know that terpkristen was considering purchasing a PS3 soon. From what I've seen, the disbursement of the consoles vary pretty wildly. Some stores have quite a few 60 GB PS3's while others only have a couple available. Best to act sooner rather than later if you want the 60 GB with the Emotion Engine.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

TK - the way I understood it is that the 80gig has software emulation instead of the ee chip to cut cost.

Additionally, Sony is reportedly paying less for the 80 GB HDD than they were for the 60 GB HDD. They secured a bulk rate for the drive that is actually better from a cost perspective than the 60 GB HDD counterpart. So even if they do drop it to $499 once the 60 GB machines run out, they're still making a larger profit margin than they were selling the 60 GB machine due to the HDD and EE savings.

[Kodos]

My PS2 love makes me want to get a PS3, but my brain tells me it still only has a couple games that I want to play on it...

[Pumpy Tudors]

My PS2 love makes me want to get a PS3, but my brain tells me it still only has a couple games that I want to play on it...
yea dog u need to get stuntman ignition aight u can jump LAVA and shit (smily face shit here) i recomend

[terpkristin]

My PS2 love makes me want to get a PS3, but my brain tells me it still only has a couple games that I want to play on it...

My PS2 starting to make funny noises I can't track down after opening it up and not playing games right (random resets) is what's making me lean that way. And I know my local BB has 60 GB's in stock, sounds like I'm getting me one of those...

/tk

[TroyF]

My PS2 love makes me want to get a PS3, but my brain tells me it still only has a couple games that I want to play on it...


The system itself is rock solid. Sony will eventually get games out for it. As of now, it's a pretty pathetic lineup. I don't think you'll regret purchasing it, it's just a matter of when you want to take the plunge.

My opinions:

360 -

Positives - Great games. Live is terrific. Best controller IMHO.
Negatives - Can'ts save via USB. Can't really do anything via USB. Loud. Systems have had problems.

PS3 -

Positives - System rock solid and quiet. BluRay if you are into movies. Built in wireless. Free online play. USB and bluetooth as well as ease of changing HDD.
Negatives - Software lineup a joke for a system that's been out for this long. Online is clunky. I don't like the feel of the six axis at all. Will buy a third party one at some point.

Wii -

Positives - Innovative. FUN. Great for the entire family.
Negatives - Need more games. Sports games will be prettier on the other two consoles.

Knowing what I know now: Assuming I had money for one console RIGHT NOW, I'd go 360 if I were an FPS/Sports game fan, WII if I had a family. The PS3 simply doesn't have the software to compete yet. It will at some point, but I have no idea when that'll be.

[terpkristin]

My PS2 starting to make funny noises I can't track down after opening it up and not playing games right (random resets) is what's making me lean that way. And I know my local BB has 60 GB's in stock, sounds like I'm getting me one of those...

/tk

Oh. And wanted to thank those that responded, I had thought that the 80 GB version didn't have the chip, but couldn't go to a gaming site to confirm from work.

Thanks!
/tk

[gstelmack]

2) You read as well as Mizzou. Congrats.

Don't worry Troy, I get the whole "Reviewer gives score X, but the actual text of the review doesn't back that up, sounds more like score Y, so where did score X come from?" point.

[Kodos]

The system itself is rock solid. Sony will eventually get games out for it. As of now, it's a pretty pathetic lineup. I don't think you'll regret purchasing it, it's just a matter of when you want to take the plunge.

My opinions:

360 -

Positives - Great games. Live is terrific. Best controller IMHO.
Negatives - Can'ts save via USB. Can't really do anything via USB. Loud. Systems have had problems.

PS3 -

Positives - System rock solid and quiet. BluRay if you are into movies. Built in wireless. Free online play. USB and bluetooth as well as ease of changing HDD.
Negatives - Software lineup a joke for a system that's been out for this long. Online is clunky. I don't like the feel of the six axis at all. Will buy a third party one at some point.

Wii -

Positives - Innovative. FUN. Great for the entire family.
Negatives - Need more games. Sports games will be prettier on the other two consoles.

Knowing what I know now: Assuming I had money for one console RIGHT NOW, I'd go 360 if I were an FPS/Sports game fan, WII if I had a family. The PS3 simply doesn't have the software to compete yet. It will at some point, but I have no idea when that'll be.

Yeah, if I didn't have a 360, I would have broken a long time ago. :)

Basically, my dilemma with PS3 is I want the EE chip in there, but want to wait for a price drop. Unfortunately, those 2 demands are destined never to cross paths. I thought about the Sony deal that some folks are using, but we are about to buy a house, and I don't want to be opening a new line of credit that might hurt my credit score just to get a cheaper PS3.

[SackAttack]

Had to return the PS3 to Sony. It wouldn't...well...do much of anything. Apparently it was a non-working unit that got returned by another outlet, and instead of getting sent to wherever they repair them, it got...sent to me.

¬¬

So it's gonna be a couple more days before I'm up and running. But hey, I'm fairly sure I have a PSN ID now. I just can't USE it yet.

[Kodos]

What morons!

[sterlingice]

Had to return the PS3 to Sony. It wouldn't...well...do much of anything. Apparently it was a non-working unit that got returned by another outlet, and instead of getting sent to wherever they repair them, it got...sent to me.

¬¬

So it's gonna be a couple more days before I'm up and running. But hey, I'm fairly sure I have a PSN ID now. I just can't USE it yet.

Ah, so maybe life isn't so charmed ;)

SI

[SackAttack]

Ah, so maybe life isn't so charmed ;)

SI

It's a struggle.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Had to return the PS3 to Sony. It wouldn't...well...do much of anything. Apparently it was a non-working unit that got returned by another outlet, and instead of getting sent to wherever they repair them, it got...sent to me.

¬¬

So it's gonna be a couple more days before I'm up and running. But hey, I'm fairly sure I have a PSN ID now. I just can't USE it yet.

You get what you pay for. Free=not working. :)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

New HD trailer with gameplay up for Unreal Tournament 3.........

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/24261.html

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

PS3 -

Negatives - Software lineup a joke for a system that's been out for this long.

I found this comment to be very intriguing. You do know that the 360 at the same point in its console life had roughly the same number of releases, right? If you think that it's brutal that companies don't have enough games ready for their release window and that's your point, then we agree.

Also, the Wii, which has been the console of choice for bad ports, only has 14 more titles than the PS3. For as many bad ports as the Wii has received, it still doesn't have many more titles than the PS3 which you mentioned to some extent.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

This should produce some interesting discussion. Took some time to do some gaming research based on game scores on Metacritic.com. First the raw numbers on number of games in each system that fall in the given score ranges.......

90-100:

PS3..........1 (2%)
360..........8 (3%)
Wii..........3 (4%)

80-89:

PS3..........22 (33%)
360..........53 (22%)
Wii..........5 (6%)

70-79:

PS3..........17 (26%)
360..........63 (27%)
Wii..........18 (23%)

60-69:

PS3..........14 (21%)
360..........63 (27%)
Wii..........24 (30%)

50-59:

PS3..........7 (11%)
360..........36 (15%)
Wii..........15 (19%)

40-49:

PS3..........3 (5%)
360..........10 (4%)
Wii..........8 (10%)

30-39:

PS3..........1 (2%)
360..........4 (2%)
Wii..........5 (6%)

20-29:

PS3..........0 (0%)
360..........0 (0%)
Wii..........1 (1%)

Some thoughts on those numbers using an assumption of 70 or higher as our line between solid games and the bad games:

-Looking at the percentages, the PS3 has 61% of it's games rated 70 or higher. The Xbox 360 has 52% of its games rated 70 or higher, which given the sheer quantity of 360 games available, is a very good number. The Wii has 33% of its games rated 70 or higher, which is absolutely stunning. That's basically saying that if you randomly pick a Wii game out of a bag of all games available for the Wii, there's a 2 in 3 chance that you're going to pull out a below average game or worse.

-Looking at the 'stinker' category (less than 50), the Wii stands out in a bad way as well. The 360 has 6% of its games that were under 50, while the PS3 came in at 7%. The Wii has an unbelievable 17% of its games that came in with a score of 49 or less. That's a lot of bad games for a system this early in its life.


My next thought was that the Wii proponents would quickly point to the exclusive titles on the Wii. After all, most of them purchase Nintendo consoles for the Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and other Nintendo properties. So I tried to isolate those figures by putting together a list of the exclusive titles for each console and averaging those scores......

Average scores for exclusive titles:

PS3..........70%
360..........72%
Wii..........62%

The Wii exclusive average was WAY below the figures for the PS3 and 360. There's always going to be bad games on any given console, but the difference in scores between the Wii exclusives and the other two systems was obvious. The lack of good quality titles on the Wii extends to exclusives and is not just a issue due to bad ports from other systems.

Some interesting numbers to ponder. It will be interesting to see how they change over time.

[TroyF]

I found this comment to be very intriguing. You do know that the 360 at the same point in its console life had roughly the same number of releases, right? If you think that it's brutal that companies don't have enough games ready for their release window and that's your point, then we agree.

Also, the Wii, which has been the console of choice for bad ports, only has 14 more titles than the PS3. For as many bad ports as the Wii has received, it still doesn't have many more titles than the PS3 which you mentioned to some extent.


I'm not only talking # of games, though that's some of it. I'm really talking about not a lot of GOOD games. A lot of the good, highly rated games out for it have been out for the 360 for a year before hand. (Oblivion for example) For a system to be out over a year and have one single A+++ title? Horrific. (BTW, I'm assuming that title is Resistence, which means the score is well worth it)

[TroyF]

Some thoughts on your list above:

The first is a question. Did you remove the arcade games from the equation? A majority of the "dog" scores are going to arcade games for all systems. It's not really fair to be putting Missle Command in the same category as a $60 title.

1) Doesn't surprise me. Remember, the Wii was the surprise system. Nobody expected it to do as well as the others. The amount of bad games is staggering and it is something they need to fix, but it isn't the end all either.

3) The overall scores don't surprise me either. It goes in perfectly with what I was saying yesterday. The 360 has the same exact number of titles in the 6 and 7 range and only a slight decrease in the 8 range. Ditto for the PS3, which actually has more titles in the 8 range than the 7 or the 6. You see a monster drop at 5 for the PS3 and 360. My personal scale is more difficult than what is up there. For one, I think there are a hell of a lot more 5's for the 360 than that. I also think there are less 8's and 7's.

When you wipe out the arcade games, you'll see very few actual games are getting below a 6. You start going trhough the list and you see that there are some games that have no business with the scores they have. F.E.A.R. for the 360 with an 85? Are you kidding me? Table Tennis from Rockstar at an 81? I've played the game, I understand the physics were kind of cool. . . but an 81? 28 sites gave the game an 85 or above. 39 sites gave Call of Duty 3 for the 360 an 85 or above.

I'm sorry, that's insanity. The game was decent, but it wasn't a must buy, gotta have title. I just have a far different way I grade games than other people. 8/9/10 are reserved for the very, very best in my world.

It's why I read the text of the reviews instead of just looking at a score. Goes back to our conversation yesterday. The guy rates a game at 8.5 and then says it isn't worth the $40 he paid for it. Sorry, I'm sliding that score down for my use instantly. Just me. :)

BTW: IGN just did a review of Heavenly Sword and raked it over the coals pretty hard. Gave it a 70. Said it was repetitive and short. (though they liked the graphics) I hope to God they are wrong. I'm buying this on day one and do not want it to be that bad.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

New info on the price drop earlier this week on Amazon UK. They're now sending out e-mails stating that the Folklore and Lair prices were a pricing mistake and that all orders will be cancelled. Guess that clears up that discussion.

PS3 Eye shipping date has been announced as October 23rd. It will be $59.99 and will be bundled with the 'Eye of Judgement' card game.

Several retailers are insisting that Lair will ship in the U.S. tomorrow (August 31st).

[TroyF]

New info on the price drop earlier this week on Amazon UK. They're now sending out e-mails stating that the Folklore and Lair prices were a pricing mistake and that all orders will be cancelled. Guess that clears up that discussion.

PS3 Eye shipping date has been announced as October 23rd. It will be $59.99 and will be bundled with the 'Eye of Judgement' card game.

Several retailers are insisting that Lair will ship in the U.S. tomorrow (August 31st).

Yes, it does clear it up. Thank God.

I'll continue to assert that a retailer who slashes a game over 50% before it's release is either:

1) insane
2) knows something the general public doesn't and hopes to create quick sales.

If it were $5 off or included in a PS3 package, I can understand it. Over 50%? Let's just say I don't think Amazon is insane. They know what their pricing means and if they truly slashed a price by that amount, there would have been a reason for it.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Some thoughts on your list above:

The first is a question. Did you remove the arcade games from the equation? A majority of the "dog" scores are going to arcade games for all systems. It's not really fair to be putting Missle Command in the same category as a $60 title.

The arcade games for both the PS3 and 360 are included in the list. However, it doesn't really affect the overall rankings if you take them out. The overall rankings if you take them out is that the Wii ends up with roughly the same overall curve as far as scoring. The PS3 and 360 overall scoring curve actually increases if you take out the arcade scores, but they both end up having similar overall scores when compared to each other. So the end result of the data gathering is still the same.

To some extent, I think it's fair to leave the games in there. Many of the XBLA games scored in the 75-80 range, so they're certainly not dragging the 360's score down. Similarly, the PSN has several exclusive titles that should definitely be included. The change in score by excluding the arcade games is very minimal relative to the overall picture, but a good point to make just for clarification of the numbers.

[TroyF]

The arcade games for both the PS3 and 360 are included in the list. However, it doesn't really affect the overall rankings if you take them out. The overall rankings if you take them out is that the Wii ends up with roughly the same overall curve as far as scoring. The PS3 and 360 overall scoring curve actually increases if you take out the arcade scores, but they both end up having similar overall scores when compared to each other. So the end result of the data gathering is still the same.

To some extent, I think it's fair to leave the games in there. Many of the XBLA games scored in the 75-80 range, so they're certainly not dragging the 360's score down. Similarly, the PSN has several exclusive titles that should definitely be included. The change in score by excluding the arcade games is very minimal relative to the overall picture, but a good point to make just for clarification of the numbers.

I find that hard to believe. While a handfull of 360 arcade titles have gotten good scores, a far larger majority have gotten justifiably ripped. Even if you are right and it doesn't make a difference, I'd want to see the scores seperated. I expect FAR more from a $40-$60 title than I do a $10 title. This is for all systems BTW. I think including those types of games skews the numbers you are trying to show.

I may filter through the list when I get home tonight. Give me something to do while I'm watching the opening of the football season.

[spleen1015]

I don't care what the percentages are. They don't matter. You are just using them to continue you PS3 fanboy crusade.

Fact is, the Wii and 360 have more good on them than the PS3.

[spleen1015]

Hell, there is an XBOX Live Arcade game that is better than everything available on the PS3.

What does that say?

[spleen1015]

Look at the titles that are on both the 360 and the PS3.

All of them are better on the 360. Just look at the review scores.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I don't care what the percentages are. They don't matter. You are just using them to continue you PS3 fanboy crusade.

Fact is, the Wii and 360 have more good on them than the PS3.

I personally think it was a pretty accurate picture. It showed that the 360 has a wealth of good games right now, the PS3 has some solid titles (but not nearly enough), and the Wii has a few big titles with a whole lot of nothing after that. It pretty much matches the perception of all three consoles at this point. I was honestly surprised that it was so accurate related to perception.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I find that hard to believe. While a handfull of 360 arcade titles have gotten good scores, a far larger majority have gotten justifiably ripped. Even if you are right and it doesn't make a difference, I'd want to see the scores seperated. I expect FAR more from a $40-$60 title than I do a $10 title. This is for all systems BTW. I think including those types of games skews the numbers you are trying to show.

I may filter through the list when I get home tonight. Give me something to do while I'm watching the opening of the football season.

PS3 has some similar stinkers as well. Games like:

Super Rub-a-Dub
flOw
Lemmings
Gripshift
Go! Puzzle
Blast Factor

All got below average reviews and were the $10 titles you speak of. It all evens out when you go through the list, basically leaving a similar situation where the 360 and PS3 have roughly the same curve with the Wii having a much lower curve.

[TroyF]

PS3 has some similar stinkers as well. Games like:

Super Rub-a-Dub
flOw
Lemmings
Gripshift
Go! Puzzle
Blast Factor

All got below average reviews and were the $10 titles you speak of. It all evens out when you go through the list, basically leaving a similar situation where the 360 and PS3 have roughly the same curve with the Wii having a much lower curve.

I'm not using it to show the 360 is better or worse than the PS3. (in terms of software, that isn't even a debate now) I'm saying that it's skewing the numbers. But I guess as usual, you didn't bother to read my posts. In bold:

A majority of the "dog" scores are going to arcade games for all systems.

Even if you are right and it doesn't make a difference, I'd want to see the scores seperated. I expect FAR more from a $40-$60 title than I do a $10 title. This is for all systems BTW. (read the full thing, especially the last sentence)

When you wipe out the arcade games, I think we are going to find the scores for all systems start to slide upward. I believe there will be a very small percentage of games under 7. That shows how screwed up review scores can be and why it's critical not to just look at the score, but read the text of the review before making a decision.

[Pumpy Tudors]

i give stuntman ignition a 103 score

it is fun and it is real. u drive a car on a movie set and u cant die. buy this game for $60 or if u can find it for $80 then pay $80. it is that good. they do not make it for sega genesis.

[Eaglesfan27]

The Wii became the fastest selling console ever to hit a million consoles sold in the UK by reaching the mark in 38 weeks. PS2 was 2nd at 50 weeks to do the same and it took the 360 60 weeks to do so. Also, the Wii has hit over 3 million sold in Japan only 7 months after its launch:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6177889.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;2

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Even if you are right and it doesn't make a difference, I'd want to see the scores seperated. I expect FAR more from a $40-$60 title than I do a $10 title. This is for all systems BTW. (read the full thing, especially the last sentence)

When you wipe out the arcade games, I think we are going to find the scores for all systems start to slide upward. I believe there will be a very small percentage of games under 7. That shows how screwed up review scores can be and why it's critical not to just look at the score, but read the text of the review before making a decision.

I had the numbers still available. So I took out the arcade titles in the PS3 and 360 list (Metacritic had no VC titles for the Wii reviewed, so their numbers remain unchanged). As I stated earlier, It's pretty much the same with a couple of very small changes. I've put the change in percentage from the previous list to show you how the removal of arcade titles affect the overall list..........

90-100:

PS3..........1 (2%)
360..........6 (3%)
Wii..........3 (4%)

80-89:

PS3..........22 (39%) +5%
360..........47 (27%) +5%
Wii..........5 (6%)

70-79:

PS3..........15 (26%)
360..........51 (29%) +2%
Wii..........18 (23%)

60-69:

PS3..........10 (18%) -3%
360..........37 (21%) -6%
Wii..........24 (30%)

50-59:

PS3..........6 (11%)
360..........24 (14%) -1%
Wii..........15 (19%)

40-49:

PS3..........2 (4%) -1%
360..........7 (9%) +5%
Wii..........8 (10%)

30-39:

PS3..........1 (2%)
360..........4 (2%)
Wii..........5 (6%)

20-29:

PS3..........0 (0%)
360..........0 (0%)
Wii..........1 (1%)

-Both consoles showed similar improvement in the 70-100 range of good titles. The PS3 had a slight reduction in a couple of the below average levels. While the 360 percentages improved in the 60-69 range, it was offset by the fact that all of the 360 games ranked 40-49 were non-arcade games, therefore the percentage of the total games in that range went up.

-Looking at the percentages (revised), the PS3 has 67% of it's games rated 70 or higher. The Xbox 360 has 59% of its games rated 70 or higher. The Wii has 33% of its games rated 70 or higher.

-Looking at the 'stinker' category (less than 50). The 360 has 11% of its games that were under 50, while the PS3 came in at 6%. The Wii has 17% of its games that came in with a score of 49 or less.

[gstelmack]

Another issue with review scores that may hurt the Wii is target audience. For example, Cars for the 360 gets a 65 on Metacritic's scale. I'll tell you now that my kids love that game to death. It is way too simple a racing game for your typical 20-40 male reviewer, but is perfect for younger kids. I wouldn't be surprised to see Wii games ripped by reviewers that are adored by the actual audience those games are targeted at.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Another issue with review scores that may hurt the Wii is target audience. For example, Cars for the 360 gets a 65 on Metacritic's scale. I'll tell you now that my kids love that game to death. It is way too simple a racing game for your typical 20-40 male reviewer, but is perfect for younger kids. I wouldn't be surprised to see Wii games ripped by reviewers that are adored by the actual audience those games are targeted at.

Licensing is a big selling point, especially with kids who don't read reviews but surely know the characters in a given game. The only kid titles that really seem to buck that trend you point out are the Lego games and the Backyard Sports games. Reviewers seem to respect those franchises for what they are and the Lego: Star Wars games are even popular with adults.

[Eaglesfan27]

Mass Effect's release date will be November 20th:

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/14381/Mass-Effect-Release-Date-Announced/

Today, Microsoft Game Studios and BioWare Corp. announced that the highly anticipated action role-playing game (RPG) “Mass Effect” will ship to retailers throughout North America on November 20, 2007. The recipient of more than 50 awards, including the 2007 Game Critics Awards for “Best Console Game” and “Best RPG” at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last month in Los Angeles, “Mass Effect” is poised to become the must-play RPG of 2007.

[spleen1015]

Mass Effect's release date will be November 20th:

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/14381/Mass-Effect-Release-Date-Announced/

Today, Microsoft Game Studios and BioWare Corp. announced that the highly anticipated action role-playing game (RPG) “Mass Effect” will ship to retailers throughout North America on November 20, 2007. The recipient of more than 50 awards, including the 2007 Game Critics Awards for “Best Console Game” and “Best RPG” at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last month in Los Angeles, “Mass Effect” is poised to become the must-play RPG of 2007.

After Oblivion, the 360 is in need of a good RPG since it looks like Blue Dragon isn't quite as impressive as hoped.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

After Oblivion, the 360 is in need of a good RPG since it looks like Blue Dragon isn't quite as impressive as hoped.

This one plays similar to Oblivion, correct (i.e. it's not a turn-based RPG)?

[Eaglesfan27]

Once again, no, Mass Effect is a turn based RPG like KOTOR that you can allow to run without turns if you choose.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Once again, no, Mass Effect is a turn based RPG like KOTOR that you can allow to run without turns if you choose.

Good deal. As much as I enjoy Oblivion, I'm generally a bigger fan of the turn-based RPG. Would love to see more good ones come down the line.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Anybody have a chance yet to play Super Puzzle Fighter HD Remix yet? I saw it's out today on XBLA and PSN. I lost a lot of my youth to that game. I've heard they did an excellent job cleaning up the graphics to upgrade it to HD.

[Eaglesfan27]

Good deal. As much as I enjoy Oblivion, I'm generally a bigger fan of the turn-based RPG. Would love to see more good ones come down the line.

I've answered that same question/comment from you re: Mass Effect at least twice before ;)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I've answered that same question/comment from you re: Mass Effect at least twice before ;)

I know. I felt the sharp sting of discipline when you said 'Once again, no,......'. It hurt, but I took it like a champ. :)

[Big Fo]

MLB Power Pros is coming out on October 1 (PS2, Wii), right in time for the baseball playoffs. I can't wait, from all I've read about the Japanese version this game sounds pretty awesome.


Introducing MLB® Power Pros, Japan's top-selling MLB® series available for the first time in the U.S. MLB® Power Pros delivers a unique flair to America's favorite pastime with an original visual style, pick-up-and-play gameplay mechanics and deep gameplay modes. Available for the PlayStation®2 and Nintendo Wii™ this fall, MLB® Power Pros is sure to be a hit with gamers of all ages.

* An original "Power Pros" visual style in which cartoon-like version of MLB players are brought to life with player-specific facial details and expressions.
* Stunning MLB ballparks are brought to life with famous landmarks, bringing authenticity to every game.
* Amazing animations with incredible double plays, diving catches, and even home-run-robbing wall catches.
* Easy pick-up-and-play mechanics in both pitching and batting, allowing both novices and gamers a game of instant fun.
* GAMES MODES:
MLB® Power Pros features several different game modes including Practice, League, Season, Home Run Challenge, Wii Remote Mode (for Nintendo Wiiª) Success Mode and more!
o Season Mode: Players become an MLB team manager with the goal of winning the World Series Championship™ by controlling all aspects of the team, whether it be training players, purchasing better equipment, or making trades.
o Success Mode: Assumes the role of a college baseball player trying to reach the Big Leagues by training in games while dealing with real-world situations like academics and part-time jobs.

* Nintendo Wii Features
o Power Pro via Wii Remote - Play Home Run Challenge or Match-up Mode utilizing the Wii remote. Hit and pitch with the motions of the Wii remote.
o Import your Miis! - Select Miis stored on your console or or Wii remote to bring into your game! Players can choose a single Mii to play on a team or populate a team with up to 10 Miis!

[SackAttack]

Anybody have a chance yet to play Super Puzzle Fighter HD Remix yet? I saw it's out today on XBLA and PSN. I lost a lot of my youth to that game. I've heard they did an excellent job cleaning up the graphics to upgrade it to HD.

I'm trying to get a reviewable from Capcom. Probably be easier to get for XBLA than PSN, but que sera, sera.

Heard good things over the years, but never have played it.

[Eaglesfan27]

Lair is getting shredded in reviews. No, MizzouBBFan, these aren't early preview copies anymore ;) IGN gave it a 4.9. I don't think I've ever seen IGN give such a poor score. Here is the review:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/817/817117p1.html

Edited to add: PSM magazine, an official playstation magazine, gives the game a 5 out of 10.

[KWhit]

Ouch. That's too bad. I was hoping that game would be great.

Dragon fights are super cool. How can you screw that up?

[TroyF]

Lair is getting shredded in reviews. No, MizzouBBFan, these aren't early preview copies anymore ;) IGN gave it a 4.9. I don't think I've ever seen IGN give such a poor score. Here is the review:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/817/817117p1.html

Edited to add: PSM magazine, an official playstation magazine, gives the game a 5 out of 10.


Unbelievable. That's a shredding. Things just don't look good for Sony right now. Two highly anticipated titles are scoring low in reviews. IGN ripped both Heavenly Sword and Lair in a single day. They did rate Warhawk highly, but I'm fairly certain this isn't what Sony had in mind. I don't hold much hope for Lair anymore. I'll still grab Heavenly Sword, but I'm not sure what other games I will purchase for the PS3 anytime soon.

I would consider a sports game for the rosters. . . but I love the 360 controller right now. It feels a lot better to me than the PS3 one. Unless one of the sports games is rated considerably higher, I'll buy the 360 version.

[dawgfan]

TroyF won't say "I told you so", so I'll say it for him - looks like his analysis of the Amazon pricing on Lair was on the money.

[Deattribution]

TroyF won't say "I told you so", so I'll say it for him - looks like his analysis of the Amazon pricing on Lair was on the money.

Uh, you might want to read the last page, Mr. William Gates.


New info on the price drop earlier this week on Amazon UK. They're now sending out e-mails stating that the Folklore and Lair prices were a pricing mistake and that all orders will be cancelled. Guess that clears up that discussion.

[TroyF]

Uh, you might want to read the last page, Mr. William Gates.

Yeah, it turned out I was wrong on the pricing thing. (because it was a mistake to begin with. My assertion that they wouldn't cut the price by over half without some kind of inside knowledge stands IMHO)

The sad thing? My concerns for the game after the delay appear to be validated. Amazon SHOULD have kept up with their pricing. If the early returns are any indication, they have no chance in hell of selling out of their stock now.

[dawgfan]

Uh, you might want to read the last page, Mr. William Gates.
Uh-huh. I'm fully aware of their claim of it being a mistake.

Maybe it really was a mistake, maybe they're just being polite so as not to piss off the game publisher. The game, by pretty much all the reviews coming out now, is a major, major let-down. Coincidence? Or did Amazon know something...

[dawgfan]

Dola - I'm not entirely sure what the William H. Gates crack was all about, but if you are implying I'm a shill for Microsoft, you might want to look in the mirror Mr. Howard Stringer.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Lair is getting shredded in reviews. No, MizzouBBFan, these aren't early preview copies anymore ;) IGN gave it a 4.9. I don't think I've ever seen IGN give such a poor score. Here is the review:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/817/817117p1.html

Edited to add: PSM magazine, an official playstation magazine, gives the game a 5 out of 10.

Yes, it's not fairing well at all. I went over to a PS3 forum as that's a good place to get further info about a game when the reviews are mixed or downright poor. Even the PS3 fans who have the game were giving it a 7. Given that it's a pretty biased forum overall, you can knock that down to a 5 or 6 easily.

Heavenly Sword (83) and Warhawk (84) are getting good reviews and Warhawk is selling very well according to early sales reports. I guess PS3 fans will just have to be happy that Sony at least did well on those. But it is really disappointing to see Lair not turn out well, even after a few extra weeks under the knife.

[TroyF]

Yes, it's not fairing well at all. I went over to a PS3 forum as that's a good place to get further info about a game when the reviews are mixed or downright poor. Even the PS3 fans who have the game were giving it a 7. Given that it's a pretty biased forum overall, you can knock that down to a 5 or 6 easily.

Heavenly Sword (83) and Warhawk (84) are getting good reviews and Warhawk is selling very well according to early sales reports. I guess PS3 fans will just have to be happy that Sony at least did well on those. But it is really disappointing to see Lair not turn out well, even after a few extra weeks under the knife.

I wouldn't exactly say Heavenly Sword is getting great reviews. Even if it holds to it's 83 average, we have two problems:

1) The ratings bias I talked about above. Play Magazine is one of the reviews so far and gave it a 100. And even a quote that's used in one of the reviews is worrysome.

So, while it doesn't eclipse the greatness of the original title that inspired it, Heavenly Sword is still a fun, engaging, and most importantly, exclusive PS3 title that Sony fanboys can brag to 360 fanboys about.


This guy gave the game an 88. But it's not as good as the original title that inspired it and "most importantly" it's an exclusive? WTF!?!

2) This wasn't supposed to be an "83" This was supposed to be a 90+. This was supposed to be a game of the year candidate. If this were a surprise hit that popped out at an 83, that's not a bad thing. But this had more hype than that.

I'll buy the game day one, just as planned, and judge for myself. But between Lair screwing the pooch and this not being the class of game I expected, I'm incredibly dissapointed. Were the PS3 my only system, I'd be REALLY pissed off about now.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I wouldn't exactly say Heavenly Sword is getting great reviews. Even if it holds to it's 83 average, we have two problems:

1) The ratings bias I talked about above. Play Magazine is one of the reviews so far and gave it a 100. And even a quote that's used in one of the reviews is worrysome.

So, while it doesn't eclipse the greatness of the original title that inspired it, Heavenly Sword is still a fun, engaging, and most importantly, exclusive PS3 title that Sony fanboys can brag to 360 fanboys about.


This guy gave the game an 88. But it's not as good as the original title that inspired it and "most importantly" it's an exclusive? WTF!?!

2) This wasn't supposed to be an "83" This was supposed to be a 90+. This was supposed to be a game of the year candidate. If this were a surprise hit that popped out at an 83, that's not a bad thing. But this had more hype than that.

I'll buy the game day one, just as planned, and judge for myself. But between Lair screwing the pooch and this not being the class of game I expected, I'm incredibly dissapointed. Were the PS3 my only system, I'd be REALLY pissed off about now.

No one in this thread has said Heavenly Sword is getting great reviews, but I'm nit-picking at that point. A score in the mid-80's certainly warrants a purchase as a good game that's well-worth the money, especially if you're into that style of game. Also, Heavenly Sword isn't even released yet. When Lair got the early reviews averaging about 6.5-7.0, I said to wait until it was released and then judge it. Obviously was a good point as it wasn't a 6.5-7.0 game........it was more like a 5.

We get it on the reviews. You don't buy into the system of number/letter ratings. I don't either. With that said, the composite score created by putting together various reviews does at least give a general idea of the overall quality of the game. You certainly didn't see me posting any scores from PS3-centered publications for the reason you cite above. Their opinion can be very misleading, but when using composite scores, their opinion is leveled out by other neutral publications. If you have a better method to get a solid neutral reads on the game other than personal opinion, I'm all ears.

I agree that the three recent releases were hyped to an ridiculous extent. I think we can agree that Lair is a disaster at this point. I think Warhawk has done very well. I honestly didn't think that a multiplayer-only game would do well in sales, but it has done very well so far. We'll see what the final product does when Heavenly Sword comes out. With that said, none of these games were expected to be major system sellers and that's been discussed in these threads. They are good games that expand a library that is overall lacking in number of titles. Did Sony hype them as more than that? Possibly, but I think most people saw them as good games, not system sellers. Sony PR isn't doing very well right now as it is, so nothing should surprise in that category.

Everyone knows the true killer titles for the PS3 will not be released until 2008. That's not a secret at all. It's roughly the same time during the life cycle that the 360 had several big titles, which was this year. The PS3 has to make headway next year when those system sellers come out.

[Eaglesfan27]

Yeah, the American version of IGN only gave Heavenly Sword a 7 which makes it one of the worst reviewed PS3 games to date on their site. There are plenty of Heavenly Sword reviews that are not good although the average is skewed by some extremely high scores from a few reviewers.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Yeah, the American version of IGN only gave Heavenly Sword a 7 which makes it one of the worst reviewed PS3 games to date on their site. There are plenty of Heavenly Sword reviews that are not good although the average is skewed by some extremely high scores from a few reviewers.

That's simplpy not true The average is not skewed. Mean score is the average of all scores, which is an 83. The median score, which is the middle score of all of them in the list, can be used to determine bias. The median score is 83.5. If there was a skewing of the composite score upward, the median score would be lower than the mean score (i.e. most of the scores would be below the mean, but an extremely high number would be offsetting those lower scores). Conversely, if the score were being skewed downward by one extremely low score, the median score would be higher.

In this case, there's no bias in the data. It's actually pretty close to a bell curve with the composite score falling right at the peak of that curve.

[TroyF]

Sony wasn't the only one hyping Heavenly Sword. It received countless awards from E3 and other shows. It may not have been expected to be a system seller, but it was expected to be a bigtime hit.

By the looks of it, it's a decent game with great cut scenes. It's also short from what the reviews are saying.

This isn't good news for Sony, I don't care how much you try to spin it. It may not cost them sales and it may not have been a system seller anyway, but they need some games to create a positive buzz to build up some momentum.

The 360 is going to have a wave of top flight games coming out for it this fall I said 5 A+++ games in another thread and got called out as being a 360 homer. With GTA delayed, that's one game off the table. But Bioshock (which had the least amount of buzz of any of the titles) already at that level and Mass Effect and Halo 3 dropping, I think it's going to get pretty close to that level.

The PS3 didn't need another "solid" game. It needed a hit. And it's looking like both Lair and Heavenly Sword won't be it. Warhawk is a nice effort. If Heavenly Sword and Lair lived up to expectations, Warhawk could be the hidden gem sleeper hit Sony would need to surround itself with the biggies. Instead, it looks like the best game of the three. I don't know how you can spin this as anything other than bad for Sony. I'm sure you'll find the way. :)

[TroyF]

BTW, the Wikipedia entry on Heavenly Sword:

Following E3 2006, the game the was awarded "Best Fighting Game" by the Game Critics Award. The game also gained critical reception from a number of gaming websites, including "Best Artistic Design" and "Award for Technological Excellence" in IGN's PS3 Best of E3 2006 Awards, "Top Playable Game" by next-gen.biz, "Best PS3 Game" by Meristation, and "Best of Show" by GameZone and GamePro. Initial reviews have been mixed.



Does that sound like a decent, solid game or a terrifc game you'd want on opening day? YMMV I guess.

[MikeVic]

Bill Harris' blog has a link to a funny review of the Heavenly Sword demo and RE5 trailer.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

This isn't good news for Sony, I don't care how much you try to spin it. It may not cost them sales and it may not have been a system seller anyway, but they need some games to create a positive buzz to build up some momentum.

Heavenly Sword and Warhawk could have both got a 90 instead of an 84 and it wouldn't produce a lick more of positive buzz for the PS3 except for a bit more excitement amongst PS3 owners, but even then, those aren't the people that Sony needs to sell on the system. It's a great system, but as long as it's more than $399, there's going to be people lined up to attack the system. It's a simple fact that price point is THE major issue. Most major analysts agree with that assessment. It's really not rocket science.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Bill Harris' blog has a link to a funny review of the Heavenly Sword demo and RE5 trailer.

The Escapist is a must read. Always good articles.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Has anyone picked up the new Super Metroid for the Wii. Most of what I heard about it is that it's very good gameplay, but it's not a major advancement from the Gamecube version. Certainly, if you enjoyed the previous version, that's likely not a bad thing.

[spleen1015]

Has anyone picked up the new Super Metroid for the Wii. Most of what I heard about it is that it's very good gameplay, but it's not a major advancement from the Gamecube version. Certainly, if you enjoyed the previous version, that's likely not a bad thing.

I haven't played it, but my son has been since we got it on Tuesday. It looks very much like the GC versions, maybe better.

More Metroid, you can't go wrong with that.

[TroyF]

Heavenly Sword and Warhawk could have both got a 90 instead of an 84 and it wouldn't produce a lick more of positive buzz for the PS3 except for a bit more excitement amongst PS3 owners, but even then, those aren't the people that Sony needs to sell on the system. It's a great system, but as long as it's more than $399, there's going to be people lined up to attack the system. It's a simple fact that price point is THE major issue. Most major analysts agree with that assessment. It's really not rocket science.

While I've railed about the price on many occasions, you've tried to continually point out that after a wireless adapter and accessories, the price point of the PS3 and the 360 aren't far off.

To be blunt, I think we are beyond the pricing issue.

What you've read from me over the past few months is quality of software. It's one of the things I've argued from the start: Games sell consoles. Not Blu-Ray DVD players. Games. Even read what I wrote above when comparing the three system. I didn't mention price point once.

There are multiple FOFCers who have said that if the games came out for the system, they'd buy it. So I disagree with you. If you have two highly touted games that live up to expectations combined with a sleeper hit, I think you'd start to create a positive buzz about the PS3. It may still be priced high, but it'll be priced high with a solid lineup of titles to choose from.

It's all opinion on this, but I've been pretty consistent with my comments on this over the past three+ months. I think when the games come, the people will follow.

[Bee]

Price is an issue when the exclusive games are getting 80-85 ratings. When those games are getting 90-95 ratings, price becomes much less an issue. :D

[spleen1015]

I agree that it is a games issue. That's what these things are for.

I learned a lesson with the 360. I got one a launch when there weren't any games I really wanted to play. Mine sat for months until Oblivion came out.

So, I decided to wait on games before I bought a PS3. It just so happens that I have become fully consumed by WoW since January. I don't know if I will ever get back to console gaming.

[Eaglesfan27]

Price is an issue when the exclusive games are getting 80-85 ratings. When those games are getting 90-95 ratings, price becomes much less an issue. :D

Exactly. If there were multiple exclusive games for the PS3 out there with terrific ratings like Bioshock is getting for the 360, I'd take the plunge at this price in a heartbeat. I'm sure I'm not alone in that viewpoint. With the 360 having Bioshock, Mass Effect (which looks like it is going to be a huge hit) and Halo 3 (which is certain to be a huge hit with well over a million preorders), I think this is going to be a huge holiday season for the 360 that is going to bury the PS3's chances of ever catching up to the 360 in sales.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Exactly. If there were multiple exclusive games for the PS3 out there with terrific ratings like Bioshock is getting for the 360, I'd take the plunge at this price in a heartbeat. I'm sure I'm not alone in that viewpoint. With the 360 having Bioshock, Mass Effect (which looks like it is going to be a huge hit) and Halo 3 (which is certain to be a huge hit with well over a million preorders), I think this is going to be a huge holiday season for the 360 that is going to bury the PS3's chances of ever catching up to the 360 in sales.

It's going to be very interesting. Obviously, this is the 360's time to 'make hay' before the PS3 reaches a good price point and gets the system selling games in place. They really need to stretch out the lead while the PS3 still has slower sales. I'm not sure it's all that shocking that the 360 has more games with big ratings (6 for the 360 vs. 1 for the PS3) as the 360 is a year ahead in the console life cycle. The PS3 developers are still feeling things out while the 360 developers are hitting their stride. The PS3 will likely have a similar string of titles with FF, MGS, MGSO, and GT all slated for release next year.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I agree that it is a games issue. That's what these things are for.

I learned a lesson with the 360. I got one a launch when there weren't any games I really wanted to play. Mine sat for months until Oblivion came out.

So, I decided to wait on games before I bought a PS3. It just so happens that I have become fully consumed by WoW since January. I don't know if I will ever get back to console gaming.

That can be said for just about any console launch, not just the 360 and PS3. The games are sparse and lackluster.

As far as the PS3, there's little reason to purchase right now unless you want the 60 GB with the EE. Otherwise, best to wait for a better price point early next year IMO.

Similarly with the 360, I'd be apprehensive to buy a system simply because the 'old' systems are still being sold. They've said that the new systems should be available once the old ones are out of stock around the end of the year.

[Bee]

The PS3 will likely have a similar string of titles with FF, MGS, MGSO, and GT all slated for release next year.
The biggest difference though IMO is that those titles for the PS3 will be competing against the next group of AAA titles for the 360 while the current (and near release) 360 AAA titles don't really have that kind of competition.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

The biggest difference though IMO is that those titles for the PS3 will be competing against the next group of AAA titles for the 360 while the current (and near release) 360 AAA titles don't really have that kind of competition.

Agree with that to some extent, though it's going to be hard for any 360 title next year to reach the same level. All of those games are going to move Halo-like numbers worldwide. The movement of consoles is the real importance of these games. It will be interesting to see what kind of increase in sales we see over the next month and a half with the 360 because of Halo and Bioshock.