The Next-Gen War has Begun!

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

According to analysts, and I love analysts, the Playstation 3 will cost about $494 to manufacture, and Sony will sell it for $399, a full 100 smackers over the price of the Xbox360. That's just a prediction however, and a prediction made before Sony announced that it was redesigning the PS3 in order to cut costs. The ability of the system to act as a router for home networking has been removed since then, so that should cut down the price some.

I think we learned something important today from Capcom's major announcement, is that even they will be bypassing the Revolution for some of their major releases. The fact that Resident Evil 5 is coming to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, despite RE4 being one of the Gamecube's top-selling titles and one of the bestselling titles in the franchise's history shows that even Capcom does not see the Revolution as a standard gaming system fit for titles like Resident Evil. This could be good or bad, depending on how many major developers actually make games for the Revolution, while skipping out on porting their major releases to the platform.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

On that note, Resident Evil on the GC was friggin awsome, but the amount of sales was less than stellar. This is due mostly to the fact that while alluring to the possibilities they could create bigger and better games with the GC, it ultimately came out to being how much money they can make appealing to how many gamers. Which is why despite the outrageous technological standpoints, RE4 is coming to PS2.

But I hope they curb the cost even more. 400 smackeroos is going to be a lot to pay for PS3, but I suppose with the abilitiy to play HD streams better than top end comps, Picture-Perfect gaming conditions, the full line of PS2 and PS1 games. . . I think it will be more than worth it.

Microsoft never learns. They have a good vision, but their vision is nothing without consumers to support it. XB360 would fly off the shelves- NO QUESTION if it was backwards compatible. Hell, just make it support Halo 2 and you have a guaranteed gap of PS3. But once again, MS shows their infantile knowledge by allowing J Allard to pull the reign and control them. I swear, the guy is the reason I started using the word asshat.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

Just a massively majorly awesome important bit of news from the Playstation Meeting 2005, Sony announced its plans for development of the PS3 following up to its launch.



According to Sony, the PS3 Evaluation System developers' kit will be released in the near future (Listed as "2005 Spring~"). The PS3ES is different from the CELL Evaluation System developers got their hands on recently, with its much smaller size and 512 MB graphics chip. Eventually Sony will release the PS3 Reference Tool to its developers. This system is what developers will be making their actual PS3 games with, and to make sure that enough time is given to finish up games for PS3's launch, the system kit will be sent out in December of 2005. Until that time, Sony is planning on upping the number of PS3 Evaluation System kits delivered to developers from 200 units a shipment in August to over 3,000 units a shipment in November.

The big news of the conference was that Sony has plans on releasing the Playstation 3 earlier than expected. According to the father of the Playstation, Ken Kutaragi, a "Playstation Conference" is scheduled to be held in February 2006, "on the eve of the Playstation 3 launch."

While there still isn't any confirmation of whether or not this February/March 2006 launch would be worldwide or only in Japan, I would expect that if we are going to have to wait, it won't be nearly as long a wait as the 7-month gap between the March 2000 release of the PS2 in Japan and the October 2000 release in the United States. This of course means that, according to what is currently known about the next-gen launch calendar, the Playstation 3 launch will fall approximately 5 months after the Xbox360 release, and many months before the planned Revolution release.

I'm sorry but I have no freakin' clue if Playstation Meeting 2005 is over or not, so I'll be here tomorrow with more news if there is anything.

�_�

[WishMaster3K]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

TY again for an update. And you cant possibly get this stuff from the popular sites like gamestop or ign. . . I know damn well this type off info is Insider only ><

[EliteYuna]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

wait what do you mean insider stuff? Pai Pai you got connections?!!!

[TheGrandMom]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

The big news of the conference was that Sony has plans on releasing the Playstation 3 earlier than expected. According to the father of the Playstation, Ken Kutaragi, a "Playstation Conference" is scheduled to be held in February 2006, "on the eve of the Playstation 3 launch."

While there still isn't any confirmation of whether or not this February/March 2006 launch would be worldwide or only in Japan, I would expect that if we are going to have to wait, it won't be nearly as long a wait as the 7-month gap between the March 2000 release of the PS2 in Japan and the October 2000 release in the United States. This of course means that, according to what is currently known about the next-gen launch calendar, the Playstation 3 launch will fall approximately 5 months after the Xbox360 release, and many months before the planned Revolution release.

I don't know what Kutaragi is talking about "early" for, it was announced quite a while ago that Q1 was when the release was going to be. Q1 is Jan, Feb, or March. So IF it will be early, it must be early to mid Feb then.

As far as a worldwide release, I have some suspicions. As we all know, the 360 and the PS3 are the top contenders in this little battle. (Not much of one is you ask me.) So lately they've been taking little pot shots at one another. So it sure would be a kick in the teeth if the PS3 did a worldwide release, or at least JP and NA. I know what would be the perfect spanking, worldwide release of the PS3 AND FFXII! Can you imagine? My heart wants to say "Yes this time they will be kind to us!!", but my brain is going "Bah your a fool! You know your going to end up waiting or import. >.<". God, I hope my heart is right!

Ya the news is all over the net. Here is a link so you can see pics of the reference tool and the evaluation system if your into that.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/635/635630p1.html

[EliteYuna]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

Worldwide release of FFXII won't help the PS3 as much though because you don't need a PS3 to play FFXII.

The new launch games for the PS3 most likely won't be taking advantage of the PS3s full capacity, but probably on par or surpass the 360 games, and then when they are fully taken advantaged, the 360 will be just a waiste of everyones time.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

I'm glad we're all Sony Supporters here. It cant hurt that this is a community forum and we are all in one way, slaves to FF, whose main series will stay on Sony. . . Notice that FFXI is being allowed to go to 360. FFXI, which was supposed to be a "Killer App" for the PS2 HDD, yet sold diddly squat compared to what Sony expected. Hence, the PSTwo came out w/o a HDD slot.

Its like Sony is telling us to forget about the HDD, much like SE is telling nins to forget about Tanking (later on, we can go down a list of nerfs they give to discourage. . .)

So aside from the main series, Sony and their 19% of SE (Actually, 19% or Square. . . not sure how that works with the merger. . .) If anything is gonna keep Sony alive, its the fact that while being stomped by "The New Thing", the PS2 has more titles for it than xbox and gc combined and multiplied by 5. In addition, Kingdom Hearts is due out soon, along with many titles that loyal fans are itching for.

Coupled with the backwards compatability of PS3, it'll turn out that Sony, in turn, already has their installed fanbase eager to buy the system.

[kuu]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

Worldwide release of FFXII won't help the PS3 as much though because you don't need a PS3 to play FFXII.

The new launch games for the PS3 most likely won't be taking advantage of the PS3s full capacity, but probably on par or surpass the 360 games, and then when they are fully taken advantaged, the 360 will be just a waiste of everyones time.

Well reality this time around isn't going to be so nice... The new systems are very difficult to program for.. but that's nothing new in the console business, and whining equals a ticket out the front door.

The name of the game is multi-threading, and it's like playing calculus when last time all you did was algebra. PS3 has 7 core, and xbox has 3... or spe with the words throwing around since launch

Xbox 360 is going to be more easier to reach full potention then PS3, given the amount of threads you need to juggle, and only the biggest companies will be making any attempt to try to multi-thread their games to such level at all, so launch games are...bleeeh most likely

But all is not well for Xbox 360, as in the PC world multi-threading is like asking for snow in tropics, and with Xbox's roots...they're all going to scratch their heads for the longest.

Sony with it's developers with legs in the console world would have a somewhat better chance at this new ideal. The console world is not going to blink much, they're used to the "Solve it and solve it fast" attitude, because it's the name of the game that PC/windows programers never even heard of.

Basically it forces programers to actually think, theorize, and hand code it, as oppose" type type type" compile, bug fix, compile with optimize flags on.

I don't think there's going to be as many PC ports this time around :sweat:

[WishMaster3K]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

Well reality this time around isn't going to be so nice... The new systems are very difficult to program for.. but that's nothing new in the console business, and whining equals a ticket out the front door.

I disagree 100%. It probably slipped your mind to consider this, but the PS3 is coded on a well used language called OpenGL. And it also has components in its hardware that essentially "do the work" for you, if you will call it something.

Think of this analogy of being equal to having a high powered vacuum- and all you need to do to get the most out of its awsome power, if use it as you would a normal vacuum. The components in the vacuum make it work so that you dont have to stress yourself.

While there are going to be struggles to grasp the system, we can guarantee that the problem wont be "we can't code it". It'll be more along the lines of "we weren't sure what to do with all the power that was available."

And Balodoth, what you said back on page twwo (i was rereading things i skipped ^^) I fully agree with except for one sentence, and it was the first one on the last paragraph. I suppose its not major, but on thing to actually keep in mind, is that since PS2 came out, computers are the ones playing catch up. You mentioned the universal scheme of consoles, which enables better games to be created, I appreciate that, but this generation will not only catch up to PC games, it will set the standard in computing as we know it. For the reasons that you mentioned, PC games, i feel will be stuck at where launch PS3 games are for at least 3 years. And with everyone who owns a PS3 essentially having the same thing, as you mentioned, we, like other generations, will continue to see better and better games.

Double Post Edited:
And Back to our regularly scheduled ranted. After I showed this post to my friend, he had some things of his own to add ^^

"We all appreciate hype, the star wars babble heads at burger king, those ever so entertaining gangster rap beefs that seem to happen every week. So what better way to market a product to an other wise uninterested fan base than to get pictures of lil Jon and the eastside bois playing XBOX 360 with that guy from punk'd. (Ed: Ashton Kutcher i think its spelt ^^)

What better way to wow the audience of people that know not what they are looking at than to take the XBOX down to west coast costumes for a special edition of "Pimp My XBOX" with X to the Z Xzibit get it with XBox, oh they are so clever those guys at marketing. (Ed: I agree, simply because no one outside of gamers realizes exactly how far games have come and what this type of technology means for the world and entertainment. No one is gonna care that 360 has this and PS3 has that, so MS needs some marketing scheme to catch up to Sony's Daunting lead. I'll admit. . . its foolish of them to try and kill a market they are attempting to take over by incorporating common pop-culture. Didnt they see Sony's deal with AOL go no where? I mean, the rip off everything else from Sony, so why not their good decisions?)

Oh and getting a hip young executive skin headed type to pose for the photo Op for the Xbox 360, oh that’s defiantly bringin in the the female gamers (much respect to the ladies that actually are gamers). MUST THE PROSTITUTION BE SO OBVIOUS WITH THESE LOSERS!? I MEAN - WOW.(Ed: No, MS will continue to whore out any and every possible asset if it means winning.)

The almost infinite recourses of the largest computer company on earth and you still cant out sell competitors that use the technology provided by your very company and you still have to sell out worse than P- Diddy and George Lucas combined.(Ed: Off the record, I think that Star Wars Episode 3.5: Attack of Da Band was the single greatest production since English Patient. . .)"

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

Sony is doing their hardest to make developing for the PS3 as easy and cost-effective as possible. In addition, Sony is teaming up with a lot of technology powerhouses in order to bring even more features into developing for PS3. Already, Sony's announced that they've partnered with AGEIA of California to allow incredible physics technology with the actual Playstation 3 devkit, and has also obtained sublicensing rights with Epic for distribution of the Unreal Engine 3.0 framework, and has also acquired the same rights with physics and animation developer Havok.

Most developers agree that the Playstation 2 is much harder to program for than the Xbox or the Gamecube because of the Emotion Engine, but the CELL Architecture, along with Sony's cooperation with developers, should make the PS3 more cost-effective and simple to program for than the Xbox360.

And just a sidenote, I'm not really against Microsoft and the Xbox360. I honestly think the system has so much potential, and I'm still amazed that Microsoft is able to put out such a powerful console when compared to the PS3, even though it's being launched months in advance. I'm very happy with many of the developers making games for the Xbox360, but my heart lies with the Playstation 3 and Revolution. Like I feel with the PS2 and Xbox, I'm hoping a lot of the good X360 games get ported over to PS3.

[kuu]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

Multi-threading is...., how would you say much harder, then PS2's weak cache problem that made it hard for programers.

It's simply...more work, to put it bluntly. No amount of help will make it easy. A traffic cop directing on a 2 way street vs on a cross section highway, no matter how you slice it, the person with more problems will be on the highway.

Well arstechnica has better insight into this mess of the future. The best sony can do is give people as much middleware options and source codes, to "teach" those that never tried it before, but there's no easy way around it.

This is nothing new in the console biz, but PC developers fresh to the scene will get a very rude wakeup call.

I don't expect much from Microsoft people as much as I do from PS3 camp... console programers just have a lot more experience in the "learn it fast" idea.

But anyway, there's no easy way out, so launch releases is going to be, except for the big companies that can throw big budgets around are going to have a long way to go.

Edit:
So in theory...
the worse case senero is no one bothers to do multi-thread yet and leave it as single thread.

So Xbox360 has 3 cores = 30%~ or so potiental (graphic card is another issue altogether)
While PS3 is 8core( -1 for error check) ~15% potential.

Now any one who's skim programing knows that worse case is not going to happen... you can spin off a thread of say "music" off onto the 2nd core relatively easily...but that's the tip of the iceberg.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

Yes, I am a supporter of the PS3 but I also support the 360 and the Revolution. Each system will be purchased AND enjoyed. What riles me are blanket statements such as

...the 360 will be just a waiste of everyones time.

There is no need for that. The system isn't even released yet and people with a bug up their ass against MS (or some other lame reason) come out of the woodwork.

I'm sure that each system will fit its niche audience just fine. I enjoy my PS2, X-box, and GC quite a bit. (Played most to least in that exact order.) I know I'll enjoy my next gen systems as well. Which one the most? The jury is still out on that.

[EliteYuna]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

Yes, I am a supporter of the PS3 but I also support the 360 and the Revolution. Each system will be purchased AND enjoyed. What riles me are blanket statements such as

There is no need for that. The system isn't even released yet and people with a bug up their ass against MS (or some other lame reason) come out of the woodwork.

I'm sure that each system will fit its niche audience just fine. I enjoy my PS2, X-box, and GC quite a bit. (Played most to least in that exact order.) I know I'll enjoy my next gen systems as well. Which one the most? The jury is still out on that.

Why do you have to argue with the facts, the facts are the PS3 has more supporters, more fans, and much more ease of design for creating games, and can outlast the 360 in terms of survivabilty thats why i feel the 360 will be a waste.

Anyway its my opinion, and its very rude of you to say i have a bug up my ass for saying that, it thnk your the one with bugs up your ass you old hag.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: The Next-Gen War has Begun!

No need to argue about it, we all have our opinions.