Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

[Feba]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

Sony creates consoles which pump out more impressive titles each year up until the end of its life cycle.

What console doesn't? Compare Luigi's Mansion and Twilight Princess on GCN, large differences. The big problem with computers in general as they exist today is that people don't really know how to take advantage of them. I bet if you locked up a bunch of people with 486s, 5 years from now they could do some damn impressive things, but hardware keeps moving ahead of software.

That's not to say that the PS3 won't be even shinier once devs learn how to use it, just that the chance of the PS3 keeping up at all is unlikely. For instance, right now, I have an apple iMac sitting next to me. About 7 years old, pretty bulky, still runs fine. In fact, it can play one of my favorite games fairly smoothly. I think it cost 800-1200$ when it was new. But you know what i'm reading about in a magazine? A Nokia N800. Less than 400$. Same speed and memory. storage space is about the same, especially in a year or two with larger and larger SD cards coming out. The N800 also has Wifi and Bluetooth built in, not to mention USB 2.0 and the digital camera. And it's about one sixtieth the weight, it's the same size as the mac's numpad.

The thing is, technology will not last and be competitive after 10 years. Even a 600$ computer 5 years from now will probably run circles around a PS3. The PS3 will probably peak in two or three years, and after that era gets old, it will need to be replaced, and if Sony sticks to it's word, it will probably be replaced with a Microsoft product.

Honestly, there's enough parallels to draw between the PS3 and the Dreamcast that it's scary.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

And even more between the 360 and the Dreamcast, but neither console will follow Sega's fate, as both have seen success.

Your mention of PCs is true for any console. A $400 PC 5 years down the line will outdo the 360's current state as well, but the 360 will not be $400 by that time, and the PS3 will certainly not be $600 for much longer. The market is calling for the PS3 to see a price drop or suffer slow sales much longer than Sony would like to see, and with rumours running rampant that Sony's planning a $200 drop before the end of the summer, it's at least likely we'll see a $500 PS3 this winter.

[Amele]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

GFLOPS means absolutely nothing. This is especially true when coming from the company that is making the chip.
If you want to measure something's performance you need real world tests, real world benchmarks. Hence why Tomshardware, Anandtech, and their ilk are so popular.

name a general operation that utilizes a larger/longer path in a general purpose cpu (feel free to specify the architecture if you need to make a specific case) than double precision floating point arithmetic executed from RAM, then.

while a 4096x4096 linpack is something of a contrived case, matrix mathematics is representative of (and harder than) 90% of the operations expected by a general purpose CPU. (this even includes vector-based GPU's, since vectors are.. surprise! matrix mathematics) and a matrix of that size is even the pessimistic case, since it's much to large to fit into any conventional cache (which means that the performance on the FLOPS test will be affected by things such as cache coherence, I/O performance (although I suspect that you mean peripheral performance? which is typically more limited by the bus/bridge architecture than the FSB on the core CPU) and system ram latency.

real world tests are used because they better represent the sort of daily experience a person can expect to get (which is why graphics cards are often tested by doing 'frame rate' on X popular game; for instance).

this is however, dependent on the entire system (many modern pc's are processor limited for graphics intensive games; and you can just as easily by disk limited in performing mathematical transformations on models too large to fit entirely into ram. etc) and as such aren't accurate discriminators between CPUs.

For the record, the Cell processor in the PS3 gets destroyed by today's Core2 Duo's, and the PS3's videocard isn't much better off.

depends on the purpose you're putting the processor to. for general gamer/desktop tasks, you're absolutely right. (I think the duo wins in benchmark tests too, actually. but for the sorts of things IBM plans to do with the cell - it will outperform the core2duo.)

To clarify, using a single type of calculation as a benchmark for a CPU is foolhardy. If I wanted to, I could say that my Radeon X1950 is faster than my CPU. Why? Because the Radeon is a specialized piece of hardware designed solely to perform certain types of calculations incredibly fast, where my CPU is designed to be able to perform almost every type of calculation possible.

which is why the standard FLOPS test is double precision floating arithmetic - the hardest type of homogeneous operation that a general purpose processor can perform. - most systems will perform *better* than this (excluding idle cycles wasted waiting on user input.) in day to day operation.

[Raydeus]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

What console doesn't? Compare Luigi's Mansion and Twilight Princess on GCN, large differences. The big problem with computers in general as they exist today is that people don't really know how to take advantage of them. I bet if you locked up a bunch of people with 486s, 5 years from now they could do some damn impressive things, but hardware keeps moving ahead of software.

But console gaming moves much slower than PC gaming (thank god) so if you ask me this generation will have a life span of at least 5-7 years, which is plenty of time for developers to learn how to use the PS3. If consoles (specially MS) try to accelerate things and keep up with current technology the way PC gaming does they'll just see their console die and gamers stick to PC gaming instead.

After all, even if buying a computer does cost way more than buying a PS3 initially you can manage with your 3 year old rig by replacing a few parts here and there. But you can't do that with consoles so there's no chance in hell people will accept an Xbox 720 in 2-3 years from now with a price tag of 700-1000 bucks.

And a great part of what makes console gaming appealing is that you don't have to replace hardware often, so you just buy your console, plug it in and play away.

Also, the PS3 is a good indicator of the max price tag you can put on a console without gamers complaining about it and turning to PC gaming instead, and I'm sure Sony, Nintendo and MS took note of that.

[Murphie]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

Well, except for the fact that they are already having to drop the price because they aren't selling enough units. But, yeah, I guess.

[Feba]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

if you ask me this generation will have a life span of at least 5-7 years

well you'll be wrong, but OK.

[jwalton]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

Also, the PS3 is a good indicator of the max price tag you can put on a console without gamers complaining about it

LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

[Malacite]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

well you'll be wrong, but OK.

Matter of opinion. Hell, Sony is still supporting PS2 for another 4-5 years. What's scary (to me at least) is what the hell they're gonna come out with next years from now...


And the #1 complaint over PS3 at the moment is the price tag, despite the fact that the system is already horribly undercosted. It should actually sell for a lot more than it is now because of the technology on the thing, but that would be economic suicide for Sony.

[Raydeus]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

Well, except for the fact that they are already having to drop the price because they aren't selling enough units. But, yeah, I guess.

Yep, that's why I said max price, people barely accepted it, which translated into slow sales for the system. So seeing this I really don't think anyone can go beyond 600 bucks with future consoles unless there's something really good in them that would make gamers choose them over PC at that price range.

well you'll be wrong, but OK.

I dunno, I think it's the same situation Blu-ray and HD-DVD face against movie downloads, theorically downloads would work better and be more convenient for costumers. However downloading a movie with current domestic internet speeds would make HD content download a pain for most people.

So, current generation HD discs still have the upper hand till internet connections (and storage space on PCs and players) displace them.

I think it's the same with current gen consoles, I can't imagine anything that would make it worth it buying a new console sooner than 5-7 years.

What ya think?

Matter of opinion. Hell, Sony is still supporting PS2 for another 4-5 years. What's scary (to me at least) is what the hell they're gonna come out with next years from now...


And the #1 complaint over PS3 at the moment is the price tag, despite the fact that the system is already horribly undercosted. It should actually sell for a lot more than it is now because of the technology on the thing, but that would be economic suicide for Sony.

Gotta consider how expensive the 3 technologies the PS3 is using are at this point, Blu-ray, Cell and HDMI support. I mention HDMI because you can still hear people crying about having to pay 40 bucks for a damn cable, but that has always been the price of early adoption.

What I'm very interested about is how low can the PS3 go in price 2 years from now when all the production costs get reduced to a more profitable range. Maybe $350 by 2010?

[Feba]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

Matter of opinion.

Not really. Last I checked, console generations usually last four years tops.

From N64 (last console in PS1/Saturn generation) to Dreamcast was two years. After that, it was another two years until PS2, a year after that GCN came out. Three years after GCN came out, 360 came in as the first of our current gen consoles, a year after that we are where we are now.

That is, PS1/Saturn/N64 Generation: 94-98.
PS2/XBX/GCN Generation: 2001-2005
PS3/360/Wii Generation: 2006-2010 (Probably)

Really, if sony really intends to make the PS3 last ten years, they're going to be overpowered by cell phones before they release a PS4. That said, I doubt sony is actually going to wait 10 years before PS4, I have no doubt in my mind that that was just hype.

that would be economic suicide for Sony.

It already is. People don't want to pay 600$ for a toy. How much did sony's game division report in losses, wasn't it like 1.4 Billion?

[Feba]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

What ya think?

I think it's a very different situation. The current consoles aren't just sitting around waiting until they get replaced by something better we all know is in the pipeline.

Also, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have nowhere near the popularity of any of the three consoles. The thing is, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are minor improvements for their price, in most people's eyes, whereas new video game systems look much better, not to mention they have that game you just Have To Have*TM*. Really though, downloads will never replace discs, in the same way that iTunes hasn't replaced CDs. People like having something solid they can hold in their hands and look at.

[Raydeus]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

Hmm, I guess counting from the moment a console is released to the moment a next gen console is released after you'd get 4 years max. But I was talking more about a console's life span without considering generation changes.

For instance, the PS2 is still alive and games are still being made for it (albeit less and less frequently), so I don't think you'll be able to declare the PS2 as dead till 2008. That would put the console at around a 7-year life span from my point of view.

So I think the PS3 will walk the same path, 10 years is indeed way too much for a console's life, but 5-7 years with titles still being made for it doesn't seem too farfetched.

Although if I can get my hands on one of those better-than-PS3 Cellphones with laser screens and or direct-to-brain image feed I'll drop my PS3 right there.

Either that or a holodeck.

[Malacite]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

It already is. People don't want to pay 600$ for a toy. How much did sony's game division report in losses, wasn't it like 1.4 Billion?

That's not even a fair assessment though. Fact is that no one makes money from console sales. All the revenue comes in from software, not hardware (well, except for perephrials [sp?]) I've spoken to store managers before as well on this matter. They're always sold at cost.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

That's not even a fair assessment though. Fact is that no one makes money from console sales. All the revenue comes in from software, not hardware (well, except for perephrials [sp?])

Actually, Nintendo may be making a small profit off of each Wii sold, while Sony definitely is losing money on every PS3.

I've spoken to store managers before as well on this matter. They're always sold at cost.

Store managers just know what prices their stores paid, and what prices they sell the machines at. As to actual component and manufacturing costs, only the makers know, though analysts may be able to make pretty good estimates.

[Manatra]

Re: Yoichi Wada calls the PS3 and 360 pieces of crap.

That's not even a fair assessment though. Fact is that no one makes money from console sales. All the revenue comes in from software, not hardware (well, except for perephrials [sp?]) I've spoken to store managers before as well on this matter. They're always sold at cost.

You do realize that Nintendo has made a profit on every piece of hardware they have sold, ever.

Honestly, not to be rude Malacite, but please stop making claims you can't back up. And no, what comes out of Ken Kutaragi's mouth doesn't count, there's a reason EGM had a "Ken's Crazy Quote of the Month" feature.

As for computers vs. PS3 and Xbox 360. Computers already beat them, especially since computers have the advantage of DX10 and the new version of OpenGL (Long Peak and Mt. Evans). For example, Crytek has said their upcoming shooter, Crysis, is not possible on the PS3.

Anyway all this talk about hyper realistic graphics etc. is kind of pointless. I think Nintendo has it right, concentrate on the games first.