I thought Killzone 2 had a pretty solid framerate, didn't notice to many heavy drops or stutters (playing on a new slim ps3). I rather see Insomniac take the direction like Guerllia games and make a knock out visual feast if that means capping the game at 30fps compared to 60fps. It didn't bother me at all in Killzone 2, heck it doesn't even bother me to lock max fps to 30fps on the Crysis games on PC (to keep effects on and native resolution 1440x900 on my laptop).

People play all the time online FPS,flight sims  and racing which you get no where near 30 fps vs internet. Your surrounding  runs at  30/60 fps but for  the other player themselves you lucky if you can get 20fps.

30 frames locked is better than a game trying to reach 60 fps and failing. A game that goes up and down between 60 and 30 is not better than a 30 fps game either. A game that is 60 fps locked and suffers, but hurts its visuals is not a plus, it's a minus.

Performance is when you can hold the frame rate at the same level and pull off the crazy visuals (which Insomniac has this generation).

Not sure if you read my earlier post, but I don't think that poll is useful for telling us anything, much less people preferring graphics to performance. If I set up a poll asking "How much does graphics matter to you in games?" and the choices looked like this:

"Killzone/Uncharted 2 graphics or no buy!"
"Resistance 2 was cool."
"As long as it looks good."
"Graphics don't really matter to me."

I imagine not too many people would select the first (and those people would be liars, or graphic whores!). Then I'd conclude framerate is more important, even though it had nothing to do with the poll!

Now, I just noticed he did respond to someone that pointed out the same thing, and he said, "That poll was extremely informal and didn't play a significant part in the decision process." However, it still shows me they're willing to manipulate data in order to prove their point. I don't like it.

As for the review score data, I'm not convinced. They say they found no correlation between framerate and graphics scores, which gives them a reason to drop framerate. However, I'm wondering how they managed to figure this out. Don't most games more or less play at the same framerate? Besides, they also found no correlation between gameplay and final scores. It means I could make the point they made about framerate:
"Framerate Gameplay is important, but not critically so. When there is a clear choice between framerate better gameplay and improved graphics, graphics should win. The correlation with review scores is clear." 

Lastly, we don't know what examples they used. It could've been cherry picked. Why not just ask the reviewers themselves, if they care so much about review scores?

I may sound too critical on them, especially when I don't even care what decision they make (not an Insomniac fan). I'm just speaking up because their data just doesn't look right for justifying what they're doing. Hell, on one of their points they make, they say players feel rewarded (as in, it's a good thing) when they cause the game's framerate to drop. That's a little crazy.

Well would you want to race 8 cars on a  race game with 60 fps or 24 players with 30 fps for example?
More cars required more GPU / thus more graphics.  I would prefer more cars on the track with 30 fps over less with 60 fps any day.

I so much prefer the look and feel of 60 to 30. It seems a little odd to me to make a full distinction between graphics and framerate.

Frame rate is about how smooth the game runs, it might feel better when you're seeing a locked 60 fps game, but it doesn't look better.

You're correct on all counts there. I'd add that the poll was as unscientific as can possibly be. And I hadn't seen the response that you mentioned. That last part in particular does weaken my statement a bit (I'm referring to the "didn't play a significant part" portion). Overall though, I'm still okay with what they're doing; in the end they're openly admitting that "we don't think performance matters as much to the bottom line as graphics, so we're going with graphics."

I have to imagine that they honestly believe this, or they wouldn't be going this route. Even if they cooked the numbers in favor of their decision (and you've done a good job of showing that they may have), I feel that they're doing this to make the transition more palatable for the minority of people who read their blog: in the end they're doing this to go after more sales, and I respect them for saying that.

Yeah, I'm fine with their decision (though I don't agree with it).

I'm actually surprised I wrote so much about this, when it means pretty much nothing to me. I guess I like picking arguments apart.

Calling a turd a turd is always fun!