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PS3/Xbox 360/Revolution: how does the future look?

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PS3/Xbox 360/Revolution: how does the future look?

Unread postby Edge » 19 Apr 2006 00:24

Yeah, the next generation of home consoles is about to start. Or has already begun in the case of the 360.

So what systems are you looking for?

And what do you think about them in general?

About the PS3 and X-Box 360:
To be honest I am starting to get tired of most games, there are seldom new or refreshing games. I think many western games are almost equal i.e. sports games, FPS.
There is no originality at all. Big publishers are always selling the same stuff because the stupid customer is going to buy it anyway. So we see an amazing line up by EA for the 360, Fifa, NHL, PGA and whatever... :roll:

I think the Japanese market is getting pretty boring with lots of sequels which are more like updates and no real sequels. New original games are often clones from other games. I am not talking about the end of the world by all this evil new games. I just think it's time for some change in the gaming market.

I don't need all this technical power, just that the companies sell me the same old games with higher resolutions and more polygons. That's why I am became more interested into Nintendo's revolution. It will at least be something new and lead to new gaming experiences. Though I might be wrong and there will be a very innovative line up for the PS3...

But I really doubt it... :?
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Unread postby Pongism » 19 Apr 2006 01:35

I have an Xbox 360. Paid for it with my one meager wages. I bought it for Dead or Alive 4 and put 200 hours into that before moving on to Call of Duty and now Battlefeld. I'm really into FPS games, so it's a no-brainer. Plus, I like feeling better than other people that say they don't want one, but really do.

I will probably buy a Revolution when there are enough games on it to make the system purchase worth it. These will have to be Revolution games, as I already own 85% or everything 8-, 16-, 32-, and 64-bit I want to have. Playing old games is not a selling point for me. And that controller is iffy at best. Genius? Yes. But still iffy.

The PS3 has become the Phantom for MY GENERATION!!!
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Unread postby Edge » 19 Apr 2006 02:35

This is offcourse a matter of personal tastes.

FPS games, I don't think they are bad. Actually I was playing a lot of Perfect Dark, Turok, Time Splitters and played and enjoyed some others. But to me most games of this genre are way too alike. Call of Duty looks to me like all the other 2nd worldwar themed FPS. There are offcourse some differences, but I just think these are not obvious enough. To me this game feels not original. This killed real time strategy games for me, they where all exactly like C&C and there were tons of them.

This could probably be said about most genres, also the likes I enjoy like Fighting games and shoot'em ups. Though I think most shmups or fighters have at least something original in comparison to many western games. And there are not THAT many clones of one game.

I am not really sure about the revo controller either. It looks a bit gimicky...
But I hope that it will at least offer some new experiences, and I like that it won't go the biggest/fastest/toughest hardware road. I don't like to pay that much for "just" a game console.

Well let's see how things evolve...
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Unread postby icycalm » 19 Apr 2006 11:39

Edge, to an outsider, most shooting games look the same--not to mention fighting games. I think the reason you find most FPSes very similar is because you don't like/love the genre as much as you like shooters or fighting games. I've played many many FPSes, and most of the good ones feel very different to each other. From Wolfenstein and Doom to Quake, Unreal, Soldier of Fortune, Descent, Deus Ex, Half-Life, Metroid Prime, Max Payne, Halo, Call of Duty, Far Cry and FEAR. These games are all FPSes, yes, but within that genre they are vastly different. Just as different as Ketsui to DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou, though they both look the same to the IGN/GameSpy/1UP/GameSpot writers and hundreds of thousands of young gamers.

I realize you dislike EA and, let's face it, we all do, but I'll say one thing: there are probably just as many, if not more, differences between one version of Madden/FIFA and another as there are between one KOF game and another.

As for the new systems, I am excited about all of them. And, to be honest, I think both the 360 and the PS3 are underpowered. I think they needed more polygon-pushing power (because of how computationally intensive the higher resolutions will be), and this is probably the only forum where I can say this and not get lynched. Everyone seems to dislike powerful systems these day and for the life of me I can't understand why. When I was growing up I wanted a Neo Geo because it was the most powerful system around. I wanted it before it even had any decent games. It was easy to believe back in those days. There was no cynicism back then: we were all excited like the bunch of kids that we were.

Power is a good thing. It helps you do more. Just look at PGR3. That game is freaking awesome, and 50% of that awesomeness is due to the hardware's power. Look at Ikaruga's beatuy. Could you imagine that game on a NES?

As for the Rev, I can't say anything until I've actually played a game. But I agree with Pongism on one thing: poor emulation with upfiltered graphics and an unsuitable controller is not the reason to get excited about a new console. Let's see those damn games Nintendo!

(I do want to believe.)
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Unread postby tenno » 19 Apr 2006 18:07

i'm, if anything, disappointed in he hurried time schedule that 'next-gen' systems like the 360 are forcing. The Xbox is just now getting to the maturity of coding and graphics that is possible, the last games for it are looking seriously sweet. Same with the PS2, same with the 'cube. Do we really need to force people and industry to buy in at only 5 years of a generation?

I think not. It's too much, too soon and too expensive. I like the graphics and I love the power, but honestly, it's turning into the PC wars where you have to upgrade every 4 years just to keep up at the minimum. I'd rather savor the fine fruits of greatness from the current gen at it's peak, than delve into the messy first series of 360 and PS3 games that can't even touch the systems full capability.
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Unread postby Molloy » 19 Apr 2006 19:50

I'm not an early adopter. I buy my consoles after a couple of price cuts.

Never been a big fan of Nintendo (more of a Sega fanboy) but the new controller looks magnificent. I really like games with interesting peripherals (particularly music games) and this new controller really has the kind of flexibility that I haven't seen before. That video they released with people sword fighting with it, chopping vegetables, shooting.. looked like brilliant fun.

The thing that appeals to me most about the 360 is Xbox Live Arcade. I love stuff like Geometry Wars, Mutant Storm. If they can keep building a catalogue of cheap, indie games I'll be sorely tempted to purchase down the road.

With the PS3 I'm interested in the software. If the PSOne and PS2 are anything to go by that platform is still going to be going strong in 6 years time. With a Sony machine you can rely on strong software support throughout the machines lifecycle; something Sega, Microsoft and Nintendo have proved patchy on.

One of the issues that I'm most concerned with next generation is game structure. Games need to stop being such dull, bloated time sinks. Give me something short and fun that surprises me. I don't want a game thats 'good value'. Full of unlockables and filler. I want something that is high quality, and that throws me out of my comfort zone. I don't have much time, so grab my attention in the first 3 minutes and don't take my attention span for granted.

If developers would concentrate on replayability and interactivity nobody would complain that games were too short. We need to get out of the single playthrough mindset. A good game should be like a music CD. It doesn't need to be more than an hour to be good. It needs to be good enough that you play that hour over and over, and get something meaningful from it every time. Less filler, more killer.
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Unread postby Chuplayer » 20 Apr 2006 03:39

icycalm wrote:I realize you dislike EA and, let's face it, we all do, but I'll say one thing: there are probably just as many, if not more, differences between one version of Madden/FIFA and another as there are between one KOF game and another.


I'm calling bullshit.

My views on the next console war: The 360 is boring. I'm only getting a PS3 for MGS4. I'm bonerized over the Revolution.

That's pretty much all that hasn't already been said.
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Unread postby Molloy » 20 Apr 2006 11:35

Well sometimes you do need to be a fan of the genre to notice the differences. Most people wouldn't expect SF3 to play any different from SF2, but anybody who's played the two games properly would know the whole parrying mechanic throws the entire genre on its head.

With FPS it was things like Counter Strike, where people would die after only a couple of bullets, and you had to wait till the end of the round to play again. Plus, you could only carry one rifle, handgun and grenade. It was quite a change from the Robotron 2084 style craziness of Quake.

The big innovations in FPS all happen in the mod community. There's a mod called The Specialists (I'm hopefully going to get on the RC team to beta test it soon) where you can use kungfu to disarm your opponent. You can dive, flip, run on walls. Get bonuses for stunt kills. Bullet time.. it's all in there.

There's another mod called The Battlegrounds where you use single shot rifles. They take 12 seconds to reload. The guns are innacurate at range so there are these big open maps, but no sniping. And tons of melee.

FPS is just not at home on consoles. The dual analogue layout is completely unsuited to it. The revolution controller will help a little but ultimately all the interesting FPS games are mods. Half Life 2 was largely rubbish. But I didn't care because there are going to be good games made available for free on that engine for the next 5 years.
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Unread postby schmeetz » 21 Apr 2006 11:45

Not to create a déja vu, but that's also just a matter of taste (the controlling issue).

I got a 360 as well, with Ghost Recon initially and then PGR3. I've played both quite a lot but it seems I'm always browsing around the marketplace (although I have to, for work) and spending inordinate amounts of time with Geometry Wars and (to a lesser degree) Mutant Storm Reloaded.

Geometry Wars...man, that is fucking awesome.

And I gotta agree, the reason you get excited about one particular KoF as opposed to another one is pretty much equivalent to being excited about a new Sports update with new roster and slight gameplay update, and I don't see the big deal with either of them simply because I'm not into that sort of thing. Now with a new shooter...that's different, because I care.

That's all it is.

And Icy, do you really think the new consoles should have been powered up even more? I think that with another year or two we'll see significant results with what we're getting in the case of PS3 and what we got with the 360. It's more a time schedule issue like Tenno said right now; everybody's capitalising as fast as they can before the floodgates open.
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Unread postby icycalm » 21 Apr 2006 13:13

I plan to write about this and explain my thoughts in more detail, but consider this: when you watch a movie on your TV you are seeing a standard resolution image. Assuming you are in a NTSC country, that would be 640x480i (interlaced). When you are playing an Xbox/PS2/GC game on the same TV, you are seeing the same exact resolution.

Which looks better? The movie or the game?

The movie of course.

Now go out and buy a 360, an HDTV and DOA4. Stick it and watch the game at 1280x720p resolution. It still looks nowhere near as good as any movie on your old TV.

The extra processing power of the new consoles should not be wasted trying to push such a huge number of pixels required for the HDTV resolutions. 640x240 (because it is interlaced) makes 153,600 pixels, while 1280x720 is almost 1,000,000 pixels. The extra power should be used for more complex effects, so that the standard resolution games can be indiscernbile from movies. Only when you have achieved this should you move to vastly more powerful hardware and higher resolutions.

Half-Life 2 in 640x480 looks unimaginably better than Half-Life 1 in 1600x1200. Hiking up the resolution isn't very important. It's the effects that count.

I believe that the PS3 and the 360 can make a game look nearly photorealistic, if the game runs at 640x480i. But MS and Sony are not allowing the developers to try this. So what we will get instead is games like N3, with incredibly detailed characters and Nintendo 64-like backgrounds. Sure, there will be games that look better than DOA4 and N3 by the end of this generation, but they won't be such a huge leap forward. DOA3 was an Xbox launch title, and it's still one of its best-looking ones. Ninja Gaiden is the best looking Xbox game in my opinion, and it only looks marginally better. Hell, they run on the same engine, only slightly modified.

And Pat, where do you work now?
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Unread postby Molloy » 21 Apr 2006 16:19

Couldn't agree more. We're easily 5 or 6 years too early for HD gaming. The installed base for HD televisions is far too low at the moment for it to become the dominant standard. Hell, they've only started putting widescreen aspect ratios in games recently.
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Unread postby Jedah » 31 May 2006 10:18

Good points there people. What's the point to deliver ultra high resolution in a game you play sitting in a sofa 2 meters away from the screen? PC games have a certain requirement for resolution, because you are standing up close to a high def screen. 640x480 or 800x600 would be more than enough for consoles with all antialiasing etc. effects activated. This high-resolution hunting of next generation hardware seems to be inherited from PC gaming. When I first experienced Virtua Fighter on Saturn, my dreams of 3D gaming future where all about extreme polygon counts, texture quality, smooth and robust framerates, special effects etc. Nothing to do with resolution. It is worthwhile but it provides less impact than polygon counts and sfx. I think consumer graphics hardware evolution is not what I dreamed of, back in 1995.
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Unread postby icycalm » 17 Jun 2006 00:20

I was just reading up some news on the Wii, and they now say that it will launch sometime before the PS3, and the initial shipments for both systems will be equal at four million units.

Also, Sony's Blu-Ray player, which was due to be lauched this month, has been pushed back to sometime in August. This may or may not affect the November launch of the PS3.

Both systems will of course sell out when they are released. But Nintendo will definitely be able to manufacture more units in a shorter amount of time.

So, basically, until Sony manages to ramp up production to meet demand (which will take a minimum of 6 months after launch), it could well be that they will occupy 3rd place in installed user base.

Now that would be something to see alright.
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