2008: How much will PS3 outsell 360?

[MikeB]

starcraft said:

MikeB said:

kirby007 said:

MikeB said:
Am I the only one who expects 360 sales to slow considerably when most XBox users already upgraded? Halo 3 even had less a positive impact on 360 sales than I expected, I view this as a good sign for the PS3 platform. IMO the outlook for the 360 isn't really that great, many XBox fans jumped into the 360 without being well informed of RRoD and other hardware issues, pushed by sequels to popular XBox games and no more support for their platform since the 360 launched.

I think people will also get more knowledgeable of Blu-Ray disc advantages with regard to non-existant disc scratching and noise production levels. I think to tech minded people the Cell and Blu-Ray advantage is already apparent, but will become obvious to everyone soon enough.

why whould a non-techie care?

More impressive high profile games. The tech gap will translate in more complex games (better AI, more enemies / events on screen, solid framerates, etc) with better audio and visuals.

Lol, because no PS3 games have suffered from unsolid framerates huh?

Though most analysts agree that the PS3 is marginally (and i stress that word) more powerful than the Xbox 360, general consensus is that the 360 is better suited to AI production. You'll recall that a Ubisoft executive stated the PS3 could not handle Splinter Cell: Conviction at its fullest, not because of a lack of graphical capacity, but because of its inability to handle the complex AI.

As someone already pointed out, console power has never played a part in console 'victory,' last generation the weakest console thumped the competition. In any case, Sony has yet to show that Blu-Ray contributes anything to gaming other than greater cost.

That much older Ubisoft statement originates from before Ubisoft performed R&D on the Cell's potential. With regard to Splinter Cell they probably only investigated the PPE at the time and if you use up too many CPU cycles on the PPE for other things you can run into problems with regard to AI. That's the problem with porting legacy software to the PS3 without adding enough SPE specific adaptations. Ideally you process nearly all your code on the Cell's SPEs like will be the case for Resistance 2.

And yes, system power plays a role with regard to sales. IMO the gap of system potential has never been so great between consoles as this generation. When consumers see good results, many will gladly pay a little more for a much more powerful system. Note the 60 GB PS3 also considerably outsold the cheaper 20 GB version, despite all games performed near identical across both SKUs.