Last Gen (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox) PS2 The PS2 was the first system out last gen as I would hope everyone knows. It had the least RAM and lowest speced chip set of any of the consoles, However, it was still able to keep up to the Xbox, and Gamecube due to a great design choice by Ken Kuturagi, who is one of the few engineers that really know how to design a system. Ken gave devs a system which as they learned it could become more powerful over time, because the EE and GS worked like sister chips. The PS2 had a 2,560 bit wide bus between the two chips which gave them the ability to work in unison unlike any other platform. This means each can help the other and that makes for a very flexable system with power beyond its looks. This design is the reason God of War 2 and Gran Turismo 4 are 2 of the Best looking games last gen, even on the weakest platform. Gamecube The Gamecube was a very simple design that was built for developers to nurture from day one. The chipset was easy to understand and had a simple design with very little head room in the future. It had more brute power than the Playstation and more RAM as well, for that reason some of the games had slightly better textures and more effects than most PS2 games. Xbox The Original Xbox was a PC. Thier was no differance between it and any other PC you could buy at Best Buy. The only thing it had going for it was that it was marketed as a Game console and had limited abilitys to make it be so. The Box was the Brute Force Powerhouse of last Gen. The fastest chip set, with the Most RAM, in fact double that of the PS2. Why then were its first party games not worlds above the PS2? Simply because brute power is not enoughf. No matter how fast your chips are if they can not comunicate with eachother, they are just being wasted. Last Word In the Last Generation all the consoles were to close to call. Even though the PS2 was extreamly underpowered compared to the competition its flexability and great deisgn, and large userbase helped it keep up.The Xbox could not take any real advantage of its power and only used its Ram as a real advantage, while the Gamecube did not even try to make a stament. You rally could argue that each system had at least one game that was not doable on th others. This Gen: (360, Wii, PS3) 360 With the 360 MS actually did a backstep in hardware. They kept their drag and drop PC design as in the last Box, but did not leave the HDD as a standared, which was one of the advantages it had in the Previous gen. Just like on the last Xbox the have a very powerful chipset, but yet again it has very bad comunication. The CPU and GPU share 512MB of RAM with 22.4GB of throughput to split 2 ways. That means you have 11.2GB through put for each of the to Processors, this is helped a little bit by the on board frame buffer in the GPU, but not to a lagre extant. The front side bus is a decent 21.6GB which gives it a far amount of comunication between the chips but nothing really out of the ordanary. At the end of the day you still have a straight forward CPU GPU chipset that can be easly learned and taped out very fast by devs. The Devs will greet this with open arms as it gives the the ability to rake in the cash, but it is not the best for gamers. Wii The Wii is a Gamecube with more RAM and 3 times as powerful chip set as the Cube. Not many specs have been released on the system, but their is really nothing to say about it anyway. Nintendo believs that people don't care about graphics, and that they would rather have a cheap console. Works for me, and I know their is know one arguing that this thing can touch the PS3/360. I will only point out one thing. Shane Bentonhouseing said one the 1up Show that if you think that it is good that the Wii has bed graphics, because that means it will have good gameplay, you are delusional. PS3 This Gen Sony did the same thing they did last gen with the PS2. The only differance this gen is they were not worried about getting to the market first. Now they have the great design of the PS2, and it is improved plus it has the most powerful chipset. The System has an HDD in every pack which also gives it a boost. Just like the 360 the PS3 has 512MB of RAM, however, instead of sharing it between 2 proccessor Ken made a pool of 256 for both, with each being able to access the others pool. With this design the system has 25.6GB through put for the CPU, and 22.4GB thought put on the GPU. The PS3 does not have a frame buffer which makes its extra though put on par iwith the 360. However the PS3 has a Front side Bus of 35GB which is almost double that of the 360. That means that every secound 7 dvds are being thrown back and forth between the to chips. This plus the design of Cell allow for devs to use the chips as one powerful flexable setup. It will take time to learn just like the PS2, but what it can give is well worth the effort. Final Thoughts This gen the Graphics Race is really a 3 hourse race. The Wii is way back in the compitition, with the 360 slightly ahead of center, and the PS3 with quite the lead. I personally think the graphics are going to be very important as this generation pushes on. This is were the Nintendo startagy fails. The 360 and PS3 can do something the Wii can't but the wii has nothing on the other two. Motion controlls are very possible on all three systems, and price is not going to be an advantage forever. The PS3 has the most room to grow in graphics, controlls, and price deduction. Once it starts to pass the 360 in graphics a lot of people will jump ship. When Sony and MS add good motion contorll options people will jump ship. Lastly when the prices drop the more powerful systems will start to take off more. The PS3 has got all of the stuff going its way. Sony will undoubtably unite the CELL/RSX into one chip at one point in the systems life which will make it extreamly chaep to produce, Blu-ray will continue to get cheaper reaching dvd like prices in a few years, and the form factor will be changed. PS3 will win this generation, Graphics do matter, The 360 and PS3 are both capable of what the Wii is doind, heck even the last gen systems could do it, and prices are a ever changing thing. Wii will have its time in the sun but its days are numbered and its power is its weakness.

WHat??? Maybe there is truth in your numbers(ram,etc.), I don't know because I just don't, neither do I care.

But the truth is, we won't know until it becomes history. That is a fact.

Good read :)

Actually in Australia... Big W was selling Blu-ray for $29au on special... I also brought 300 there for $34au not on special so the price is coming down in someways to DVD :)

No mention of the fact that these are theoretical maximums, your language and contradictions clearly display an obvious bias. No mention of the fact that the 360 is better for manipulting and generating features such as AI.

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1

No mention of the fact that information is ripped off a blu ray disk at a much slower rate than it is ripped off of a DVD9.

No mention of the fact that the Wii's motion control pawns the PS3's and that the PS3's motion control has constantly been lambasted as being ineffectively implemented.

No mention of the fact that many developers have noted that whilst the EE chip was hard to master, it was built for games, wheras the CELL is far less game-specific. Whilst this doesnt lessen the CELL's power, it certainly lessens its game rendering power.

The last highlighted statement best demonstrates your ignorance, most devs agree the Wii is slightly more powerful than an original Xbox.

Most devs agree that the PS3 has more raw power than the 360, however they comment that unlike the EE chip the CELL is not built for gaming. They further comment that accessing the SPE's is EXTREMELY difficult and that the financial costs of doing so will prohibit the development of many games to use anything like the PS3's potential. Im sure there is a lot of potential somewhere inside the locked black box, now if only Sony could remember where they hid the key......

If they haden't fired Ken Katarugi, they could have asked him........

I am a wii owner after many years of not having a console. I am just over 25 and i am considering buying a 360 or a PS3. Though the PS3 is too expensive at the moment. Then again i am just not really a "hardcore" gamer. There are aspects of this artical that trouble me in that it really is a  oversimplification of the reasons why people buy a console. Some of the aspects that you seem to brush over.

 You say "prices are an ever changing thing". Reality: I would not buy a PS3 until it is under 400 euor and it is currently at over 600 euor (800 dollars in ireland). The PS3 will clearly not go down by 200 euro for a long time( I reckon over 2 years).

PS3 and 360 can do everything that the Wii is doing. But what the wii is doing is a philosophy, that they have committed to at the price of graphics. If PS3 and 360 follow suite before there prices come down they will get hammered. If i buy a pS3 it will be for resistance or motorstorm or halo not for any other reason!!! I would like to own gears of war so 360 does seem to be very attractive to me now.

 I am really looking forward to mario galaxy, super smash brothers and Metroid. These are games that are first party games are something that PS3 and 360 don't do and can't do. Though in terms of Metroid they can make games like them. PS3 and 360 have a style and identity and if they are going to sell machines at 600 euro need to highlight this not to try and copy other systems.

I think what you are saying does have points, in that graphics do matter to an extent. But they need to improve at a rate that means the console can be sold at a price for people who want to play games and not to ultrahardcore users. I also think spending so much on the development of a game may stop developers from taking risks and be more likely to use a formula. But then i may be proved wrong. I have tried to be objective but i really have to be critical of your artical in that it is wholly focused on the graphics issue which is to ps3's strenght and swipped away other aspects which it wasn't. I think about 3 years the ps3 will start to make inroads but then you have to wonder if the other two consoles are not thinking about their next generation. If it can get its price down fast enough, i might consider getting one and i hope you enjoy your time on it while i scrounge the money and hold off for a few years at least :).

The graphics race (if it can be called that, I actually don't think it matters who ends up stronger between the 360 and the PS3 since they are close enough for it to be fairly indistinguishable) is not about the theoretical peak power of a console. Nor is it the practical peak or even the games that are supposed to be graphically impressive but unreleased. All this stuff is meaningless.

The graphics race is only about games that have been released, at the very least to reviewers. At the moment the trend is that 360 games are better looking. Whether this is because of the difficulty of utilizing the PS3 does not matter. The difficulty of programming plays into the graphics race. There is no point having amazing power if it is never used as it is not cost effective to spend the time to tap into it (I'm not saying this is the case with the PS3, just making a point).

Further more the graphics race is not about the number of lights or polygons, although these help. It is about how good a game looks. For me the wind waker is the best looking game I have ever played.

Also, it doesn't matter if a game looks good if the game is crap. It doesn't achieve anything, thus the graphics race can only really consider a point scored if a great looking game is delivering a decent playing experience as well.

I think it is likely the price advantage will be forever. The gap may shink, but I suspect Nintendo will always keep the Wii cheaper than their rivals, unless they are continue to sell so well they don't need to.

I just can't see Sony or Microsoft release motion controls or if they do developers supporting them. Firstly I think a lot of people chose the PS3 and the XBOX360 because they are more interested in the classic style games. It is very questionable that people would buy such a controller. Given this, developers releasing games on it have a fraction of the PS3 and XBOX360 markets which is not very enticing. If either of them had a massive base of support then I think it is possible, but they don't.

It is also kind of like admitting defeat to copy the Wii so blatantly. They could try and take a different approach, but I'm not sure they could do this and retain the same quality experience. I think if they want to do this, they should wait for the next generation and do it right from the beginning.

PS3 with "quite the lead"? On which planet?

Oh, you mean specifications? That explains why most games never use the six additional cores then.

that was actually a pretty decent read- BUT u missed out Dreamcast from the last gen consoles... how could u kgb =( ... anyway, i don't agree that gfx are an important factor this gen... (being honest that part sounded a bit desperate and like you wanted us 2 agree with u so u could justify thinkin the PS3 would bounce back into 1st place)... Also I agree the Wii is quite behind in terms of horsepower but you do have 2 admit games like galaxy look amazing...some guy i sit next 2 in ICT(computer studies basicallly) saw me watchin the GDC 07 trailer of Galaxy and thought it was amazing... and he is the average gamer lol.... I honestly didn't think it would float his boat tho because he's a bit of a graphiczz lover...(he luvs his psp)... but if it good enuff for him... it good enufff for any1... I aint trynna say it will b as powerful as 360 and PS3 (i kno it wont and that's y i'll be gettin a 360 in the near future) but I'm just sayin...

@KBG: That was pretty long post, considering that you could have posted "I have no clue about the systems, but i wanted to make a topic to tell you that".

First mistake in your post was in the first sentence, telling PS2 was first of its gen. It wasn't. Dreamcast was.

Any system "becomes more powerful over time" when devs learn how to use it correctly, PS2 wasn't any exception.

Please, next time you feel like posting BS like this, try even to find out some facts or don't post at all. There was basically nothing correct in your post.