DRJ said: wii_are_better_than_ said: PS3, to put it bluntly, is just the system to laugh at this gen. PR people at sony have practically made the system a joke with all their awful claims. stuff like "rumble is last-gen" and "360/Wii isn't worth the price" and countless others. To see them hype up the console so much when everyone knows that most people don't want it makes the system easy to laugh at. It's almost the people's way of saying "I told you so" to the arrogant PR workers. just my 2 cents...   I remember when they announced that rumble was last gen, then the next day there is an article stating that Sony reached a deal to license the rumble tech... Sony's PR department should teach classes on what not to do, should generate a lot of $$ for them. E3 was their downfall, everything they announce is just a joke.

Yet what Microsoft said and did doesn't get critiqued, now does it? Backwards compatability that would be on par with the PS2, and now Microsoft believes people just don't want to play their old Xbox games. HDMI wasn't necessary to play games in true 1080p, yet there's the Elite on our horizon. Almost a year-and- a-half since the Xbox first launched and there are 3 versions of the 360, yet no one thinks that is pathetic. Hell, there are rumours flying around that there might be a fourth one, and it could either have the built in HD-DVD drive or Blu-ray.

Blu-ray? Weren't Microsoft the ones that also claimed Blu-ray was inferior to HD-DVD? Wow, that sure would be a hard bitchslap for Toshiba now wouldn't it?

If anything, Microsoft is just as bad as Sony.

Overall I would say the PS3 is considerably more powerful than the XBox 360, but you will see this benefit mainly in PS3 exclusive games. Current XBox 360 ports to the PS3 may run worse because the game engines often haven't been modified enough to take good use of the PS3's SPEs, these SPEs are the main reason why the PS3 is overall considerably more powerful.

Also the PS3 has the advantage of massive Blu-Ray storage, but in general this benefit will and has only really manifested itself in PS3 exclusive games, as for a XBox 360 game it's best to keep the game size down to fit on a single layer DVD as the drive slows down considerably while reading a dual layer one and game companies will do their best not to ship multiple discs, Blue Dragon being an exception.

Poseidon said: Blu-ray? Weren't Microsoft the ones that also claimed Blu-ray was inferior to HD-DVD? Wow, that sure would be a hard bitchslap for Toshiba now wouldn't it?

Bitchslap? What do you propose they do if HD-DVD loses, to throw themselves in a hole? Microsoft is not stupid, that's one of the reasons why HD-DVD is an accessory on the 360... If necessary, they can always release a Blu-ray reader for the 360, and most 360 buyers will be happy, especially since blu-ray readers will be a lot cheaper at that time.

 Now think about the converse situation, a loss for Blu-Ray... What can Sony do then?

 It's all business, not charity! Companies are together for as long as it benefits them.

@ NJ5

Include a PS3 driver for the XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on?

Seriously it's strongly looking like Blu-Ray is in a winning position (leader in North America, despite HD-DVD's headstart, in Japan up to 98% marketshare, in Australia largest DVD distributer not stocking HD-DVD movies, in Europe Blu-Ray has pushed HD-DVD movies off many shelves, for instance our local Media markt, Europe's largest retailer of consumer electronics, has placed the last remaining unsold HD-DVD copies within its larger Blu-Ray section, etc), adoption is growing rapidly, more so than was the case with DVD, and the bulk of the industry is positioned behind the format. But even if Blu-Ray would not win that war, I think Sony would still release the best of its own and MGM's library on Blu-Ray disc.

But with regard to gaming IMO Blu-Ray as a default offers a lot more advantages to a game console as compared to playing movies, the lots of extra storage will be very useful to developers. Even if Blu-Ray failed as a movie format, IMO Blu-Ray is still a better format for PS3 games than HD-DVD because the discs are scratch resistant, one of the issues XBox 360 owners complain about

Technically there aren't that many differeces between what's possible with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs, the major difference seems to be that Blu-Ray discs play at a higher bitrate (and a protective layer). In the past HD-DVD mass production was cheaper, but now even that's not the case anymore. As a movie format I would choose Blu-Ray over HD-DVD both from a technical perspective and based on industry support.

MikeB said: Overall I would say the PS3 is considerably more powerful than the XBox 360, but you will see this benefit mainly in PS3 exclusive games. Current XBox 360 ports to the PS3 may run worse because the game engines often haven't been modified enough to take good use of the PS3's SPEs, these SPEs are the main reason why the PS3 is overall considerably more powerful. Also the PS3 has the advantage of massive Blu-Ray storage, but in general this benefit will and has only really manifested itself in PS3 exclusive games, as for a XBox 360 game it's best to keep the game size down to fit on a single layer DVD as the drive slows down considerably while reading a dual layer one and game companies will do their best not to ship multiple discs, Blue Dragon being an exception.

Point 1) Considerably more powerful than the xbox?? I think you must be listening to SONY PR a tad too much, most tech guff I have read is generally 50/50 some say sony more, some say xbox, some say about the same.
You are correct about engines not working correctly, generally 3rd party devs will make a quick buck early in a console lifetime. (See ubisoft)
Point 2) Why is it people are so affraid of multiple disks?? Yes ok, it costs more, I guess DVD's cost about 20c? to make?, maybe 1$ at most (pressed etc).  And c'mon after 7 hours playing your going to say its a pain to change dvd?, In FF7, it took me ages to pass the first CD, and I had to change the cd multiple times due to me playing other games, I dont ever recall complaining.
I'd say companies will attempt to not ship multiple disks, but wont go out of their way.  They wont be like OMG its on 2 dvd's, time to cut out the middle part of the game.  (Although it *WOULD SUCK* for them if they where just over the dvd limit hehe)

 

No it's based on various other sources. Achievable performance is in the PS3's advantage, the difficulty in writing / porting software is in the XBox 360's advantage.

Although I prefer everything on one disc I am not afraid, it's the developers who make sacrifices. For instance on the PS3 for Motorstorm and Resistance uncompressed 7.1 audio support was included, because there wasn't a need to offer anything less than the best the industry is offering today (other exclusive games like Lair will support this as well). I don't think we will see 7.1 audio in major XBox 360 Elite games, the added cost of additional discs is not worth satisfying a minorty of people having the audio sets to enoy 7.1 Audio and the HDMI port included is half the bandwidth of the one found with the PS3, which I believe will be an advantage later on when games need to push more data like 48-bit deep color 1080p graphics in combination with 7.1 Audio.

Would people have preferred God of War 2 for the PS2 to be supplied on many CDs or just one DVD? In the past the PS2 was heavily criticized by many people for going with DVD instead of using just CDs, but I think that was an equally wise decision as going with Blu-Ray now, at least if having an eye on the long term future

Great first post bud. I think the true war of the 360 vs. PS3 (leaving Wii out) is what platform is the LEAD system these multi-platform games are developed for.

Great example: FNR3. It's selling almost as well as the PS3 version, despite the fact that it's a year old on the 360.

The true merit of how "good" the graphics on the PS3 are is not tied up in how fast the SPEs are, but how efficently and quickly developers can and will utilize them. The reason the PS3 is far from any sort of major contender for this generation (in terms of matching the 360/Wiis # of units sold a year) is because it's taken a major flaw of the PS2 and magnified it: Developer difficulty in utilizing the power of the system.

Sega lost MAAAJOR ground to Sony and Nintendo not because the Saturn was a bad system, but because it's dual-core nature prevented most every developer from using both cores to produce a brilliant game. The Saturn was a better CD-driven system graphically than the PS1, but it lost because the games developers made for the system weren't very good due to the nature of the system, and too much extra cost associated with making the games better.

The breaking point is if Sony can somehow develop middleware, developer kits, or something to allow the big ones like S-E, EA, Konami, Namco-Bandai, Activision, ect to make the PS3 a lead console for development on the multi-platform games. They can do this by making the PS3 graphics/gameplay better than the 360 for the same # of development dollars. However, at this point that can't really happen. The SPEs are more difficult to get the same amount of power out of vs. 360, and thats why it's not only lost alot of games, but the 360 is the lead console: It's Saturn vs. PS1 all over again. Sony can easily turn the corner, however. 3-4 years from now the PS3 could easily become the lead system IF Sony was able to convince developers that the PS3 is the best choice due to the fact the SPEs ARE better than the 360. There's no doubt to it.

However, the 2x power of the SPEs mean nothing if developers have to pay more to use the power on a system of a smaller fanbase than the Wii/360. That my friends is the dealmaker and dealbreaker. Why should a dev make the PS3 a lead system for a multi-port game when it'd cost more and return less? It's simple economics.

The Wii has the advantage of multi-plat games being semi-cheap (however, they'd still have to dumb down textures and invent wacky Wii controls for the system).

The 360 has the advantage of getting close to the PS3's graphical prowess without the associated costs of it. Yes, it's considerably more costly than the Wii being a lead-platform game, but it returns the cash by the large user fanbase (still #1 worldwide and still the lead platform of 3rd party & multi-plat games).

So those economic factors will inhibit us from seeing alot of MAJOR 3rd party games making the PS3 a lead platform for the near to mid future. Sony, however, will produce brilliant PS3 games showing how good the system can look.

Hopefully, S-E jumps ship and I can get myself FFXII and FFXIII on my 360 (KH3 would be good too). My girlfriend at that point won't be mad that I'm a 360 owner and not a Playstation owner :)

@ mrstickball

The XBox 360 userbase is currently larger, also it seems quite a few PS3 owners also own a XBox 360 and may already have bought the XBox 360 version.

I think at least in North America there's a lot of confusion if the PS3 is better than the XBox 360 version or not. Early report claimed the XBox 360 version to be graphically superior likewise does a Gamespot article, but comparison pictures and videos show the PS3 is visually the better version and the VES rewarded the PS3 team with the 'Outstanding Real Time Visuals in a Video Game award' for 2006. I also am of the opinion that the PS3 version is graphically the better version, but the added first perspective option for the PS3 makes it easier to say which version is better. The PS3 version suffers somewhat from loading times, which could have easily been reduced if taking more advantage from the PS3's default configuration. I guess EA rushed the game a bit to meet launch day, final PS3 dev kits were out rather late only a few months before the official launch.

According to insiders the PS3 is easier to develop for than the PS2, also some claim that with regard to the PS3 it will be easier to tap into the PS3's hardware potential if comparised to the XBox 360, which also still has quite a bit of untapped potential.

Further I agree completely with you, I think Sony is going to help push their exclusives to very high levels (for instance Killzone), so that multi-platform developers would look incompetent to consumers if they aren't optimising their games well enough for the system. I think with regard to the average PS3 consumer graphics, AI, physics, the scale of environements, etc all matter a whole lot more than for the lower-end consumer who may not own a good HDTV and audio equipment to enough the PS3 to its full potential anywhow. (the PS3 still look a more impressive even on a 480p TV compared to non-high def consoles though) So I think and hope multi-platform game companies cannot afford not to learn the way of the PS3 (multithreading game engines).

 

 

Currently ,the ports of X360 games in the PS3 only use the PPE and the RSX ,some use a SPE to optimize some graphic effects but little more .Even only using the PPE and the RSX the games look nearly identical .Some have little problems (frame rate issues in determinate stages ,some graphic filters bad ported because not modified ) and some look better (NBA 2K 7,Fight Night 3 ,Oblivion) but they keep the pace with the best the X360 is offering right now .The PS3 even if it doesnt lead will benefit  from all the occidental games in the market as making a port from X360 isnt so difficult .

 

What would be interesting would be to see a PS3 game using fully the Cell ,the RSX and the BLu Ray storage for massive content and tons of graphic information .Now I would like to see that "ported " to the X360 .

 

 

Diomedes1976 said: What would be interesting would be to see a PS3 game using fully the Cell ,the RSX and the BLu Ray storage for massive content and tons of graphic information .Now I would like to see that "ported " to the X360 .

And how long do you think it will be before such a game exists, considering the low sales of the PS3 so far?

Bons question - how much money do you think would be spent in graphical content to fill up a whole Blu-Ray disc?