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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Were PS360 too powerful upon release?

mrstickball on 05 August 2013

No. Not at all.

The PS3 sold at a massive loss because it had some very proprietary, poorly-designed technology via its Cell processor (which was like $200 alone vs. the X360's IBM Power-PC based processor, which was arguably as good throughout the generation).

The 360 sold at a small loss - something like $50-75 USD for the HDD version and maybe $125 for the non-HDD version (which was always the lesser of the two in sales).

I think Sony made some bad decisions in regards to its architecture, which could be argued it was too spec-heavy (which led to cost overruns). But given how everything turned out.. They both did a lot better job than Nintendo did by a country mile.

Nintendo dropped the ball and screwed up the Wii specs, badly. They could have at least put something a bit more powerful in it - even $50 more of tech like more RAM and a better CPU. It would have paid them back in spades, as it would have meant more multi-platform games. Now, the WiiU can never catch up because 3rd parties know what the consumer reaction will be to a last-gen piece of technology once the fad has ran off.

Yes, you can point fingers at X360/PS3, but they aren't nearly at fault as compared to Nintendo. Their online sucked, their media solution was abysmal. Their HDDs couldn't support DLC, or anything that mattered for online content, and their 3rd party relationships were nothing more than casual games and chop-shop ports. That does not spell any sort of success for Nintendo outside of what they did internally with the Wii Sports/Fit,ect titles. Those did great, and helped the system sell in the short term, but eventually its systemic problems were brought out, resulting in a very poor showing late in life, and that's spilled over to the WiiU, which has sold abysmally.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

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zorg1000 on 05 August 2013
Zappykins said:
zorg1000 said:

I just saw the other thread about Wii being underpowered and it got me thinking, were the HD twins overpowered?

Ive read multiple times that both systems were initially sold at $200+ losses and it took a few years for them to begin selling at a profit. To my knowledge neither have made up those early losses.

Another thing to consider is the cost of developing games skyrocketed, causing many developers to go under, maybe thay could have been avoided if the HD twins werent so powerful. If it werent for cheap to make casual games on Wii, I could see alot more devs going bankrupt. It seems like gaming is coming to the point where most games are either AAA blockbusters or indie titles, mid level games seem to be going extinct.

Games like Gears/Uncharted/Assassins Creed/etc could all have been done on weaker hardware just with less fancy graphics and not so big worlds. Top of the line graphics are nice but most games would have been just as fun without them.

PS3 could have a cheaper alternative to the Cell and DVD instead of Blu-Ray (DVD only became popular in 2000, people were still content with it), they could have always added it in a redesign anyway. 

So lets say 360 and PS3 were both released in 2005 with one sku at $400 selling at a small loss, something like $50-100 per unit. Would they be better off and would the game industry in general be healthier?

Well, I don't know about 'too powerful' like sort of like saying someone is too good looking or 'this pizza taste too good!' 

But the Xbox, the Xbox 360 and I think to an extent the PS3, both were above their common contemporaries on the PC.  That was the first time that ever happened, and sadly, this gen it is a little bit behind.  But last gen's jump in graphic was just so good.

I'm playing Alan Wake again and just forgot how good that game looks and sounds.  It is a very well crafted game, in the same way JAWS is a well crafted movie.   Sound, music, story all blend so well together.  It makes the experience greater than the sum of it's parts.

Lol I like ur analogy. But I just mean would they have been better off not such beasts and sold $400 hardware at little to no loss.

Would Alan Wake have been worse if it didnt look quite so nice?



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

ListerOfSmeg on 05 August 2013
mrstickball said:
No. Not at all.

The PS3 sold at a massive loss because it had some very proprietary, poorly-designed technology via its Cell processor (which was like $200 alone vs. the X360's IBM Power-PC based processor, which was arguably as good throughout the generation).

The 360 sold at a small loss - something like $50-75 USD for the HDD version and maybe $125 for the non-HDD version (which was always the lesser of the two in sales).

I think Sony made some bad decisions in regards to its architecture, which could be argued it was too spec-heavy (which led to cost overruns). But given how everything turned out.. They both did a lot better job than Nintendo did by a country mile.

Nintendo dropped the ball and screwed up the Wii specs, badly. They could have at least put something a bit more powerful in it - even $50 more of tech like more RAM and a better CPU. It would have paid them back in spades, as it would have meant more multi-platform games. Now, the WiiU can never catch up because 3rd parties know what the consumer reaction will be to a last-gen piece of technology once the fad has ran off.

Yes, you can point fingers at X360/PS3, but they aren't nearly at fault as compared to Nintendo. Their online sucked, their media solution was abysmal. Their HDDs couldn't support DLC, or anything that mattered for online content, and their 3rd party relationships were nothing more than casual games and chop-shop ports. That does not spell any sort of success for Nintendo outside of what they did internally with the Wii Sports/Fit,ect titles. Those did great, and helped the system sell in the short term, but eventually its systemic problems were brought out, resulting in a very poor showing late in life, and that's spilled over to the WiiU, which has sold abysmally.

I am not sure on all of that but the Wii did have DLC it also has a lot of online content on Wiiware. I didnt even own one but its not that hard to look into.. Also you cant blame Nintendo for 3rd parties. They did that to themselves. If you look at software sales, a good portion of 3rd party games like Madden, Tiger Woods, actually sold better on Wii at first then PS3 or 360. It wasnt until COD4 skipped Wii, Madden went full casual on Wii, and 3rd parties started dropping really bad ports or spin offs, or rail shooters, that sales slowed. Nintendo cant force 3rd parties to release quality games and considering Nintendo released the highest rated exclusive last gen on inferior hardware it shows the specs really didnt hurt it at all.



zorg1000 on 05 August 2013
mrstickball said:
No. Not at all.

The PS3 sold at a massive loss because it had some very proprietary, poorly-designed technology via its Cell processor (which was like $200 alone vs. the X360's IBM Power-PC based processor, which was arguably as good throughout the generation).

The 360 sold at a small loss - something like $50-75 USD for the HDD version and maybe $125 for the non-HDD version (which was always the lesser of the two in sales).

I think Sony made some bad decisions in regards to its architecture, which could be argued it was too spec-heavy (which led to cost overruns). But given how everything turned out.. They both did a lot better job than Nintendo did by a country mile.

Nintendo dropped the ball and screwed up the Wii specs, badly. They could have at least put something a bit more powerful in it - even $50 more of tech like more RAM and a better CPU. It would have paid them back in spades, as it would have meant more multi-platform games. Now, the WiiU can never catch up because 3rd parties know what the consumer reaction will be to a last-gen piece of technology once the fad has ran off.

Yes, you can point fingers at X360/PS3, but they aren't nearly at fault as compared to Nintendo. Their online sucked, their media solution was abysmal. Their HDDs couldn't support DLC, or anything that mattered for online content, and their 3rd party relationships were nothing more than casual games and chop-shop ports. That does not spell any sort of success for Nintendo outside of what they did internally with the Wii Sports/Fit,ect titles. Those did great, and helped the system sell in the short term, but eventually its systemic problems were brought out, resulting in a very poor showing late in life, and that's spilled over to the WiiU, which has sold abysmally.

How do u see this scenario playing out. All 3 release holiday 2006. 360-same specs, delay is used to make sure RROD never happens, cost $400 60gb HDD. PS3-no Blu-Ray and more cost-efficent alternative to the Cell, equel in power to 360, cost $400 60gb HDD. Wii-beefier specs, the bare minumum to run games in HD, still uses motion controls, $300 8gb HDD.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Daisuke72 on 05 August 2013

Hell no, we were barely doing 720P @ 30FPS this gen, if they were less poweful we'd be using sub-hd. Which some games still have to use.



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zorg1000 on 05 August 2013
Daisuke72 said:
Hell no, we were barely doing 720P @ 30FPS this gen, if they were less poweful we'd be using sub-hd. Which some games still have to use.


Does gaming in HD make the games better?



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Daisuke72 on 05 August 2013
zorg1000 said:
Daisuke72 said:
Hell no, we were barely doing 720P @ 30FPS this gen, if they were less poweful we'd be using sub-hd. Which some games still have to use.


Does gaming in HD make the games better?

Yes it does, the visuals of a game greatly enhances the experience in my opinion.



Seece on 05 August 2013

Took 360 less than 2 years to become profitable (or the EDD at least). Perhaps PS3 was tho, given it's made a huge loss that it won't recover.



 

zorg1000 on 05 August 2013
Seece said:
Took 360 less than 2 years to become profitable (or the EDD at least). Perhaps PS3 was tho, given it's made a huge loss that it won't recover.


What is EDD?



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

mrstickball on 05 August 2013
ListerOfSmeg said:

I am not sure on all of that but the Wii did have DLC it also has a lot of online content on Wiiware. I didnt even own one but its not that hard to look into.. Also you cant blame Nintendo for 3rd parties. They did that to themselves. If you look at software sales, a good portion of 3rd party games like Madden, Tiger Woods, actually sold better on Wii at first then PS3 or 360. It wasnt until COD4 skipped Wii, Madden went full casual on Wii, and 3rd parties started dropping really bad ports or spin offs, or rail shooters, that sales slowed. Nintendo cant force 3rd parties to release quality games and considering Nintendo released the highest rated exclusive last gen on inferior hardware it shows the specs really didnt hurt it at all.


1. Wii didn't have remotely as much DLC as the X360/PS3 did. The system wasn't even designed for it due to horrible stock HDD spaces. How many pieces of DLC were over 50MB? Heck, the WiiWare size cap was essentially 50MB the entire generation - whereas the X360 realized that was a bad idea, and removed it quickly, and PSN never had it to begin with.

2. Blame Nintendo instead of 3rd parties for games? Yes, I can. When you had a two-tier system that was either HD or Wii, you can set that blame on a console that simply wasn't in the same timezone as the other two. Look at this generation's top multi-platform games - Wii versions were either hack-jobs, or non-existent entirely. Furthermore, your arguments about EA multi-plats are mostly wrong. The top Madden for Wii sold 860,000 units - about 110,00 units less than the PS3 version, and about 1.5 million less than the X360 version. The gap just grew from there. You are correct about Tiger Woods Wii outselling the PS3/X360 versions, but that was arguably one of the few, if only multi-plat titles that ever outsold either HD version.

3. Nintendo can't force 3rd parties to release competent ports, but they could have given them decent hardware to work. When its virtually impossible to port technology to a given console because its vastly inferior, that isn't the developer's fault - that is the hardware manufacturer's problem in failing to anticipate developer requirements for the generation.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.