God of War was awesome graphically, but there will be even better looking games. For example, a clip of the game Black, a FPS from Criterion (Burnout), is available at IGN. Everyone needs to check it out: http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/668/668817/vids_1.html All of a sudden, the KZ demo looks very possible. No problem. BTW, your post just makes me laugh. Seeing what I said about MS followed by the words "Good post" just makes me smile. I know that's not what you meant, but that's how I read it at first.
Uh..no. The only reason you could buy a Revolution is to have a big library of classics, and because you just want to play a good game that has maintained a fairly good level of quality throughout the years. 'move forward and experience with todays technology' is just corporate BS that most people have bought into. Especially given the fact that the GC is hardware-wise, smack-dab in the middle of any of the current generation stuff. Unless you're one of those folks who thinks Nintendo can do no wrong or won't admit to yourself that they are not among the top competitors in the industry at this point (i.e. the fanboy), another reason you'd buy the Revolution... ...is because you like playing fun video games. Which applies to a larger group of people than most care to admit.
I'm assuming you meant Nintendo developed games (Metroid, Mario, Zelda, etc.), and not actually fun games in general. The 1st one makes sense to me, but not the second one. If you're just looking for fun and original games, each of the companies have their share of titles. Just going by 1st and 2nd parties, with SCE you'd have the Eyetoy stuff, the Ico/SotC team, the platformers (probably new ones next-gen, instead of Sly/Jak/Ratchet), Level 5 RPGs (Dark Cloud), and some others. With MS, of course you'd have Bungie with Halo, and possibly a new original title from them. You'd also have Rare and the Mistwalker games. I think there's some more than I'm forgetting (who made those Kingdom Under Fire games?), but MS has at least a few good ones. Basically, I don't see any reason to single Nintendo out for making "fun and original games." I personally don't understand why some of you would disregard tech specs so much. I like classic games as much as anyone, but I know that you can only go so far without upping the tech specs. If hardware power didn't matter, we'd be stuck with the NES or something like that, and never enjoying the type of gameplay that games like MGS, Halo, GTA, etc. (as well as online play) can give us. Remember, power does NOT equal just better graphics. With more power, all aspects of games can be improved. I'm actually excited to see how Cell and the new Eyetoy will be able to work together. I recall reading something about a Eyetoy-like feature that would follow the eyes of the player and could adjust the camera in games (forgot the name exactly). But it used up like 62% of the EE in the PS2, making it impractical for games; on the PS3, it would use up less than 1%. Had Sony just come up with a EE 1.5 or something like that, this type of technology wouldn't be used for another 5+ years. Getting powerful hardware in this case didn't really mean better graphics, but actually the possibility of a new type of gameplay. Here's another impressive tech from a team at Sony (the ones who made the GS): http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/wbs/2005/08/26/movie/tt.ram It is in Japanese, but basically, the technology allows you to animate a 2D image of something, or I should say someone. The video shows them taking a picture of the woman, and then using an ordinary PC to create 3D animations of her face in realtime. I'm not sure if SCE will end up using it at all, especially with something that would be geared towards gamers, but I would guess that the impressive tech specs of the PS3 will make it more of a possibility (or maybe even add something to it). Just another example where high-end hardware can make incredible things possible on a game console. All that said, I do like Nintendo's approach with the controller, although it is getting pretty crazy here lately. If it is indeed revolutionary, then it will probably be incorporated into consoles of the future, much like the analog stick, rumble packs, shoulder buttons, and even wireless controllers. Even though I may not like Nintendo's overall plan for the Revolution, I would hope to see a new design that would improve gameplay. Combine that idea with powerful hardware and you could get some great games, IMO. Imagine the PSP with a touch screen (or a DS with PSP's hardware if you wish). You can come up with better games with both of those combined than just one or the other. Or actually, a better multimedia experience would be a better term given the extra stuff the PSP does (guess you could have a mouse and KB like interface with the touch screen in the web browser). Last I read, it does sound more and more likely that Nintendo will have SOMETHING for TGS, at least according to the rumors. Matt C over at IGN said in a Revolution thread that he knows that he'll be excited for TGS (why mention that in a Revolution thread and not some other thread?). I believe he knew about the Metroid demo at E3, so he might know something here as well. That makes the wait for TGS even more unbearable. I'm already really excited because of the MGS4 trailer.
Just a follow-up on the Blu-ray disc resistance... There was this show in Berlin recently where a bunch of the Blu-ray members showed off their stuff (Toshiba showed off some HD-DVD stuff as well, but it sounded pretty sad). Anyways, here's something from TDK about the coating they made: http://www.blu-ray.com/images/ifa2005/tdk_05.jpg I forgot to mention earlier that they must have figured something out or else they would have stuck to the caddies they were using early on. So again, I wouldn't worry about BR discs being ruined that easily. Also, PSM has a..um.. interesting article about the PS3 in its November issue. Someone who got the early issue posted some of the info: Sorry about all that info in one giant quote. It was a little better grouped when I read it, but I put it all together here. Obviously, there is at least some doubt to the stuff they said. Some of those things they mentioned could have been major exclusive stories for PSM, or any other magazine/game site. For example, given the work Rockstar is putting into GTA4 for the PS3, it is VERY doubtful that GTA would be available on anything else (Blu-ray alone makes that difficult). Yet PSM just casually mentions GTA exclusivity and everything else as if it shouldn't be a surprise. A lot of the info makes sense or could be confirmed very soon (MGS 4 for example), but you can't help but think that at least some things in there are not exactly true. Even if it is 100% BS, it is at least an interesting read. I'd give them some credit for creativity, that's for sure.
I more or less agree with that, although the newest one doesn't look too bad. I think there was a clip of gameplay that was released around E3, and it looked pretty fun, at least when compared to the past few. I'm not that familiar with the series, but I thought I read something about the original dev team actually working on this one, while the other games were handed out to various (crappy) teams. Crystal Dynamics are the developers, IIRC.
Anyone with reason knows that all companies have good, creative original games under their development houses. Why would you assume otherwise? What I meant is Nintendo games have rarely let me down in terms of a good gameplay experience, even with their longtime franchises. The graphical capabilities of the GC have been on par with anything else out there, no reason to doubt that won't continue. And, of course, they have a lot of classics under their brand. All of which are things I consider consistant. Therefore, to say that the only reason you'd have a Revolution is because you want to be 'behind the times' or are only a Nintendo fanboy is idiotic. Because tech specs mean jack all. The Dreamcast was hardly a slouch in terms of its respective generation. The Game Gear was quite impressive for a handheld at the time. The GBA is still at the level of the SNES for all intents and purposes, but it's still the best selling system in the world. The XBOX is the most powerful system of this generation....did that mean that everyone with a PS2 sold their system in anticipation of buying the XBOX the next year? Of course not. Tech specs are just hype that companies throw around to sucker in the folks who need something to latch on to when they talk at the water cooler the next day. What percentage of the millions that will buy systems do you think really knows what terraflops, multi-cores or shaders really means? But they'll hear enough hype to say "Well, I heard so-and-so is going to be more powerful", as though that really means something overall. They forget it really is all about the games, the effort and creativity of the developers, the originality and experience of games that aren't talked about on MTV or shunned by politicians. Hell, if you are so inclined, the artistic value of many games can also be thrown in there. And that is unfortunate.
Agreed. Nintendo does seem to consistently produce solid games in genres otherwise ignored. Whereas XBOX for sure and Playstation to a large extent focuses almost exlcusively on Action/Adventure, Sports and Racing games. It will be interesting to see how Playstation's eyetoy develops.
The eyetoy didn't really catch on till late, but I think it's possibly a very cool thing. Lots of possiblity there; plenty of chance to expand the creativity of developers. Sony should make good use of it, maybe. In fact, it's very much the kind of thing I would expect Nintendo to do. XBOX360 has a camera peripheral as well, but as far as I now it's only use is a webcam/Live sort of thing. Don't know if that's planned to change.
I was like 95% sure that's what you meant since you've said the same before. But I had to make sure. You mentioned that you will get a Revolution for sure; one of the deciding factors you, and others, mentioned is that it will have "fun and original" games. Obviously, if each console will have these games, then that can't really be a deciding factor. Each company will provide AAA games, so making this a deciding factor is like making EA support for a console a supporting factor (sorry Dreamcast). I let it go the first time, but you brought it up again as a reason to buy a Revolution, so I just wasn't sure if I understood you correctly. Had you said something like "I/Others may want to play great games like Mario/Zelda/Metroid/Animal Crossing/etc." it would have made better sense to me. Again, I heavily assumed that you meant this, but I wasn't sure since you seemed to be saying another thing in two different occasions. As far as the tech specs stuff, I never said tech specs are the only determining factor for a console, so forget all the arguments about the success of the GBA or the XBOX (or lack there of). There are obviously a bunch of factors that decide the success of a console. What I said was that the technical abilities of consoles should NOT be disregarded, which people in this thread seem to be doing. Obviously, if each console can do pretty much the same thing with the hardware, an extra GFLOP (or couple hundred non-programmable GFLOPs for that matter) here and there won't really be much of a deciding factor. For the most part, each console will be able to do the same things. But how do we know that will be the case this time around? It is assumed that the Xbox 360 and PS3 will be similar in hardware power, yet AGEIA came out recently and said that the Xbox 360 may not be able to perform some of their more advanced physics (normally regarding fluids such as smoke, fog, water, etc.), while the PS3 would be able to do pretty much the same thing that their PPU does. And of course, there are the occasional rumblings here and there that say the PS3 might be "considerably" more powerful than the Xbox 360, such as the PSM article I posted. Although I'd wait until TGS to confirm this, it can't be denied that a lot of the PS3 stuff so far is noticeably better than the Xbox 360 stuff. The problem comes in when we try to guess how powerful the Revolution will be. At E3, I believe it was mentioned that it probably won't even match the Xbox 360 in power, despite the much later launch. Nintendo may not even support HD resolutions, although I believe I read that they are reconsidering that issue. I suppose you could assume that it will be a relatively powerful console, but is that a safe assumption? This depends on what Nintendo's launch plans are, but let's say they launch shortly after the PS3 and price the Revolution at ~$199, the same as the GC and N64 IIRC. Let's also assume they either come close to breaking even at that price, or may even gain a small profit from it, like they have in the past. So, how can the Revolution, technically, compare to the PS3, which could be priced at ~$400 and probably cost Sony much more than that? Keep in mind that Sony is a hardware company, while Nintendo isn't, so given the same resources, Sony would be able to come up with a technically better product (better price and/or better performance) in every case. Also keep in mind that Nintendo wants to keep the Revolution insanely small (it was pretty damn small at E3, and they said it would be smaller). The CPU's/GPU's going into the PS3 and Xbox 360 are both pretty big, and they'll need room to allow for proper cooling (the big case designs weren't on purpose). So state-of-the-art console hardware does not go well with a small case. Nintendo may very well come up with a console that will be on par with the other two, but if they follow all this, then it will be incredibly hard, IMO. If they can do that, then I will certainly be eagerly anticipating their next handheld (some of the rumors about the Revolution were that it basically would be a handheld). But I'd guess that it will be more like a DS vs PSP type gap in power than something like a GC vs Xbox gap (or even a DC vs Xbox gap). Those were a lot of assumptions, but I wouldn't consider it unlikely to happen. Maybe Nintendo will wait until late 2007, early 2008 (about the same time from the PS2->GC and PS1->N64, IIRC) to release the Revolution, making it easier to make a console that would be roughly on par with the other two consoles. Or maybe they'll charge $300-$400 for the console, making it less-costly to put in powerful yet expensive hardware. But to me, it sounds like Nintendo will be content with something like a GC 1.5 technically, and rely heavily on their revolutionary idea. The more power available to developers, the more they can do with it (graphics or otherwise as I showed previously). If the Revolution can't handle the things developers are doing on the other two consoles, then games will be hindered in some way. I'm not necessarily saying this will happen, but that's why I think it is wrong to completely disregard the technical specifications of each console. If Nintendo comes out with a console with the power of a SNES, some of you might care about that a little more than you said you would. Just having "fun and original" games won't help it since the other two consoles will have games that are just as, if not more, fun and original, while also providing the graphics, AI, animations, physics, etc., that the Revolution couldn't offer. I would agree with the Xbox part, but I think it is debatable about the Sony part, especially if you want to include 3rd parties. A lot of the big name games for Sony usually are from the genres that you mentioned, mostly because that appears to be what people want, but I know the PS2 had some quality games from other genres as well. Maybe the Nintendo games stand out more since you don't also have too many GTA, MGS, DMC, GT, etc. type games, so it is easy to focus on the original games that it is. Another reason could be that, unfortunately, a few of these titles never make it stateside. SCEJ makes some interesting games, that's for sure, although they rarely bring them over here (barely got Shadow of the Colossus). Off the top of my head, I can think of some Dog simulation game (not like Nintendogs, but you take the form of a dog), a Mosquito game, some games with this cat-like creature (forgot the name), a bunch of music-type games, Rez, and I think I read something about Seaman 2 coming out for the PS2 eventually. If I could spend a week or so in Japan, I could probably name a bunch more. AFAIK, those aren't popular genres, yet developers either from SCE or developers with Sony's permission make them. Those games probably don't sell too well, but Sony keeps supporting them, along with the Eyetoy.
Yes, that's pretty much the only way it would really have an impact. Otherwise, it doesn't matter at all. The idea that one console in a given generation, at this point, would be generations behind the others is highly unlikely. Therefore it makes little difference. The Revolution will likely be cheaper, be just fine from a technological standpoint (especially considering they are also running a new IBM processor and if the free online plan goes through) and will have great Nintendo-made games (if the past is any indication). An easy choice. Unless, of course, the Rev comes in at $400, and doesn't have any bells and whistles, then it becomes a much harder decision. We'll have to wait and see on that.
I find it funny that people will actually bash MS and Sony for their "lack of great games" while praise the "original and creative" titles on Nintendo. Aside from the Zelda series, I don't see any MAJOR innovation in other series that could be better than, say, the Metal Gear Solid series or the GTA series. Mario? Same thing over and over again. Metroid? Okay the FPS was different but it's the same shoot em up but now you're actually in the suit as Samus. As for Nintendo putting out more great games than MS and Sony, you can just look at the number of games that are released on each console and find your answer. Sony (I believe it was) releases more games per month and the other two systems. Then MS and then Nintendo. The more you put out, the more the quality fluctuates. If by releasing only a handful of titles every year that are good to great--and with these said titles being sequel after sequel--is a good thing, then I ask y'all where is the risk taking and the innovation? Nintendo used to have that back with SNES when everyone developed for them. But since they made one of the worst moves by sticking with cartridges for the N64, they've basically painted themselves into a corner with only 1st party titles saving them.
I don't think anyone said Nintendo put out more great games than Sony or MS. That's rediculous. unless you weren't just talking about this thread, in which case there are people that say the same about MS and bash Nintendo and Sony, and Sony and bash MS and Nintendo. So it's all a wash. Though I have to say, Metroid was hardly the 'same shoot em up'. One of the best games this generation.
Of course, my SNES example was an exaggeration to display that tech specs do matter, but I'm glad you admitted that it would be an impact. I too don't really think it will "generations" behind, but there's a chance the Revolution, from a technical standpoint, may be as much as a generation behind, kind of like the DS and PSP. I'm hoping Nintendo is able to figure out a way to pack a punch with the Revolution but as I said, it will be pretty tough for them to be on par with the other consoles unless something semi-drastic changes. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if they waited until 2007-2008. I suppose if you are fine with that amount of power at a ~$200, then fine. But, all else equal or close to it, I'd rather spend the extra money on a console that would allow developers to use the best game technology available in order to make impressive games that are still fun and original. Remember that the console will have to last 5-6 years, maybe more. I'm not really sure what you meant by "great IBM processor" since IBM has a part in making all the processors this-gen. AFAIK, little is know about the CPU (or GPU for that matter), but IBM could easily just been given the task of creating a efficient CPU that will fit inside a small box. Just because IBM is designing it doesn't mean it will be some powerhouse. And online play may not be as much of a big deal if Sony goes with free online as well. Plus, I'm sure some games will charge, not to mention if any publishers want to do microtransactions. As I said earlier in the thread though, I'm wondering how much of a role online play will be next-gen, especially if broadband doesn't start getting into more homes. As I said, XBL is probably the best plan around, yet only ~10% of Xbox users play online.
No, you're missing the good stuff. Pikmin, Super Monkey Ball, Animal Crossing, Paper Mario. And then you have all the great sequels - Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Super Smash Bros., Mario Karts. None of this is to say that Sony and Microsoft don't put out great games, or that those genres aren't also great. I love Halo and other shooters, and sports games for that matter. Just that if you think all your missing without Gamecube is a couple of good Zelda games, you're wrong.
Only in such an extreme case. Otherwise, I stand by what I said - it means jack. And why would you expect that? There hasn't been enough information to know one way or the other.
