Spoonce? Is that you?

Yes. Yes they did (and by "they" I really mean we). It was an awful experience for those of us who bought an N64 expecting the diversity of games that the SNES had seen. FF VII was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

Admittedly, I was a teenager then and full of angst. I think every person has to go through some of this betrayal melodrama at some point in their life. It's a rite of passage. You just wish you could slap your 14 year old self and say "No one owes you anything!". Ah well, it probably wouldn't change anything.

you're getting your sources from fanboys; you really don't have much of a case against MS. You really can't blame SE for wanting to put out FF for a system that actually sells. There are more 360s out there and always will be more 360s than PS3s, not developing games for it is just foolish.

This is the best post ever.

-1 for ITT Technical Institute.

Yeah, I was upset. I was a big FF fan and when I found out it wasn't comming to the N64 that I bought with my hard earned money I practically cried. To find out the Square Soft (at the time) decided to put it on the PS1 because CDs were cheaper than cartrages (the excuse I heard at the time) crushed me. I understood that it was better for SS to spend $1 on a CD than $10 on a cartrage with a chip large enough to hold the entire game, but it didn't make me any happier at the time. I eventually 2 years later spent more hard earned money on the PS1, and I was happy.

how would changing discs in a game like GTA work ?

@anarchy west, most likely, you would switch disks to keep the story moving with each disk having full city on it... or you just install it since that seems to be the rout consoles are going... thus making blue ray useless with its slow speed... if only it was 8 x

 I tried to take you seriousl;y, but you keep resorting to using the term "fair." Fair is a term used to explain life to children. Fair is a word that has no meaning. It is the most worthless of all words. If it fair to have one person buy a Jaguar while another starves to death? Is it fair to take money from the person buying the Jaguar to feed the starving person? You can make an arguement for any answer to those questions. Fair is meaningless and should never be used in a real discussion.

 That said your examples are not anywhere near relevant. The point of games is simply to make a good return on the investment. Maintaining a good business relationship with the console manufacturers is simply one part of that equation. FFXIII was budgeted assuming the PS3 would have the same success as the PS2 did. 20-30 million dollars in it is extremely clear that simply will never be the case. I doubt this move has even seriously damaged the business relationship of the two companies. The project could have been scrapped, or taken off the platform all together a long time ago. Making it multiplatform is a resonable compromise that will leave both companies very happy in the end.

 Edit: You also seem to be under the mistaken impression that every person who will buy the game would have bought a PS3 for it. Thats just not the way the general consumer works unfrotunately. Let me put it another way and maybe it will make sense to you. Would you pay $460 for a game? Would you pay $60 for a game? A metric tonne of people will say yes to the second one, and no to the first.

Redundant city with voice, missions, and content exclusive to each disc? Then again, GTA didn't need more than one disc. Perhaps mandatory HD installs of redundant information. I'm sure if it was a PS3 exclusive, GTAIV woulda been a better game. That's sarcasm of course. Hypothetical situations aside, realistically, Blu-Ray isn't necessary for gaming currently. It might in very few instances, save you time, but acting like it is needed simply isn't correct.

Now let me speak on the "power" of "The Cell." Another delusion of PS3 fans.

IMO, "The Cell" is just a phrase that symbolizes a promise Sony made at E3, after the Killzone trailer. The promise is that the PS3 will have much better graphics, and much more horsepower than its competitors. A promise that will never come to fruition. We have people that will try to explain the complexities of the architecture. You know what that is? Cherrypicking. Even if somehow "The Cell" physically existed as a substantial entity outside of talking points, and would eventually play a role in the console wars, Sony didn't think to include the other "features" required to boost the graphical power of games, beyond the processor, like say, a future proof video card and ram setup, I'm guessing. We tend to believe in generalizations because we don't understand everything, but I think it's fairly clear that writing videogame code isn't rocket science, and "unlocking the cell" amounts to calling Sony when your 360 port has a lot of slowdown and you don't know why.

The Cell is a magician's trick. A salesman's gimmick. All products have them. They are items within a product that do something you'll probably never exactly understand, but they have a cool name, so when you say to your friends, "Hey, I just bought this badass Toshiba television. It has Dynalite," or, "I just bought this awesome Samsung TV. It's the model withthat includes the Tru-color picture," you'll have a nice talking point right in the introduction. Nobody knows what this stuff does, but it's a cool word that makes people who listen believe that something they don't know about makes your purchased product better than the average.

It's an old vacuum cleaner salesmen trick. It's selling firewater off the back of a covered wagon in 1859. It's a Rainbow vacuum cleaner selling talking point. It's a Billy Mays product. It's oxy-clean. Now with Stain-Gaurd(trademark). The Cell is Stain-Gaurd.

It's the Playstation 3. Now with The Cell(trademark). We've spent years and billions developing our super processor, used by the US government in tests, and seen as the fastest super-computer known to man. This will destroy your 360, /snap, like that. Set it, and forget it. A pitch. Simple as that.

Its purpose? To battle cognitive dissonance, and when you're trying to devide on one console or another, and you're on the fence, you might say, "Well, this has The Cell," so I'll get it. Mostly, however, it is to comfort purchasers and give them a talking point. It makes you feel better knowing you have the "all powerful cell" at your fingertips. You know what "The Cell" is? This is the deepest secret no one knows. The Cell is nothing. It's the same thing that every other computer has inside it that does what "The Cell" does. It just does it in a less efficient way in order to appear different. Those other ones are just not called "The Cell."

imo

Now maybe my opinion is wrong. I'm not a technician. However, I do know bullcrap when I see it. The signs are universal, and I know marketing. It's easy to spot. You can't mistake it.