JasonGW

Actually it's not that I have a lot of cash to spend, it's that I've been collecting for a LONG time. However, my hardware knowledge comes from having been a Systems Engineer for the past decade and change. I think, however, it's VERY clear that you are pro Sony, period. I don't think you can argue reasonably that PS2 games are generally better. For the most part, PS2 games I've tried (renting, largely, because I never buy before I try) tend to suck. Either their graphics suck, or they're another copy of a copy of a copy, etc. Not all, mind you, and I'm not saying there aren't a large number of good PS2 games (As I said, I own a large number of them myself) but that number as compared to the total number of available games for PS2 is absurdly low. The same holds true for PS1. Lots of good games, a WHOLE HUGE lot of mediocre to crap games. Moreover, games that are incredible on other systems suck very badly on PS2 (Splinter Cell is a great example, and Soul Calibur II's best version was probably gamecube with XBox coming in a close second). XBox has some stinkers too, to be sure, but on the whole I'd say the number is a lot smaller percentage of the total library than PS2's is. Gamecube, well, I have yet to see *any* bad games for that console. It's major weakness is its small library, but Nintendo's devotion to quality and to innovative, original games and gameplay is second to absolutely none. Almost without exception Sony's best games are third party. Sony themselves produce little to nothing worth playing, much less owning. Developers make PS2 games for one reason and one reason alone: The console has penetrated the market *very* well thanks to excellent advertising and extraordinary hype. To this day there are still people who delude themselves into believing that PS2 is more powerful than XBox or Gamecube for Chrissakes. Like it or not, with the coming generation Sony's got a problem on its hands, and its recent releases of info are designed *purely* to try and throw Microsoft's new system off its game (so to speak) like they did with Dreamcast. As in that scenario, expect their claims to be exagerated and not at all well delivered upon. Just as an example, 1080p. Good god, people, as of today there isn't a TV on the market that can accept a 1080p HDMI signal, not even from *Sony*. There are numerous variants of 1080p sets that *upscale* a 720 to 1080, and there are several variants that use different methods to *get* to 1080p (check out some AVS forums, many will tell you that these are not "true" 1080p sets). 1080p capable digital sets aren't expected on the market until later this year, and penetration won't really start to happen in large numbers for *several* years. One might also point out that not ONE broadcaster on the North American CONTINENT broadcasts 1080p. It's 720p or 1080i (with a smattering of 480p's here and there) all the way. Jason

now a couple of things i've observed on you. you have the need to reply any text which doesn't agree with you. 6/9 of the latest posts are yours, so first refrain from clicking "add reply" and use the "edit" button. next, from now on, correct your terms (you've alredy told this) as everyone can express his own opinion without being called fool, fan-boy, stupid or a$$hole (yes, we're enough clever to understand what $$ hides). now, CALM DOWN!, if you need to write something aggresive or rude, use your diary. LET the people EXPRESS their ideas! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Spare me your diatribe, I have not done--indeed cannot do--anything to prevent anyone else from expressing their opinions. What I will not do, however, is let blatant, obvious BS, dishonesty and simple idiocy stand without a challenge. Those who refuse to honestly call it the way they see it are hypocrites. As for your links, yes, I was *there*, I saw exactly what your friend did. The systems , yes, use a Powermac G5 style chassis. Do you suspect for a moment those boxes are running OSX? No. They were G5 CPU's in dual processor configurations with Radeon X850XT graphics cards. These are the *ALPHA DEV KITS* given to developers to begin work on their games. Given that the CPU in the XBox 360 is a PowerPC based processor, it's not at all surprising that they would use these as a starting point for giving developers a head start. In the end the architecture of the CPU will be similar, so a simple recompiling of the code for the final CPU and GPU's should suffice (though I wouldn't rule out optimizations specific to the final hardware). What I said still stands as fact: At E3 we saw and played XBox 360 games in the development process, running on Alpha Dev Kits. Sony showed exactly squat, because the PS3 is *Vaporware* at this point. Jason

Well, while I do believe MS is a company to be reckoned with, that the XBox 360 hardware is more than capable of standing up to PS3's and that only fools proclaim the battle "won by PS3" already, I don't agree that there is a *clear* winner, nor that we'll see one for several years. I *do* suspect that XBox 360 will surpass PS3 sales, at least in the first 1-2 years. I don't think that the battle will be "swiftly and decisively won" by *anyone*, in spite of the drooling fanbois on this and other forums. This one will be much, much closer to call, and it's really anyone's game. In every generation there are *always* the drooling, mindless drones who proclaim a winner to a race that hasn't even happened yet. Those are people you should ignore. They are stupid from end to end, and their pretentions at knowledge of the future in an industry as complex and unpredictable as this one are dishonesty at its purest. The Next-Gen war has not yet begun, much less ended. Jason

I take it that means you'll be sticking with PS2 forever, then, since PS3 is--get this!-- *another console*!!! Jason <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I have to say you are one of the most anal people on this forum I have ever seen. Look at you four replies in a row bashing everyone's opinions thinking yours is the only one that counts! And then to make this comment shows how much your personality must shine on a daily basis "Come on, people, what happened to the *Intelligent* people who used to populate MSFN's forums? Have they all been completely supplanted by idiots?" You sure sound very *Intelligent* yourself a$$hole. Have a great day <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ooh, aren't you clever? You simply underline my point: Intelligent discussion here has been replaced with drooling fanbois who can't be bothered to address specific *issues* and *details*. Instead you prefer to go off on this BS diatribe that adds nothing to the discussion, counters no point made by anyone about anything or even attempts to discuss the OP's original statement. What a shame MSFN's board membership has gone so far down the toilet. Jason

Actually you're confusing the XBox's E3 showing with Sony's PS3 showing. XBox 360 games were *playable* on Dev Kits running an early version of the hardware that was running at about 30 percent of what the final hardware will be. Sony, on the other hand, showed nothing but pre rendered videos and an empty plastic shell with a "concept design only" label on it, all under glass, of course. Only the imbeciles were wowed, and the show went on. As for whoever said above that Sony would "own the portable market in 5 years", what are you smoking? Nintendo owns 94% of the portable market and the DS *continues* to outsell the PSP. PSP is a cool box, to be sure, but the games and the unit itself are MUCH too expensive for mass consumption. Further, its games, while cool, are still just PS2 games, nothing more. Nintendo innovates, Sony replicates. Jason

I take it that means you'll be sticking with PS2 forever, then, since PS3 is--get this!-- *another console*!!! Jason

Given that PS3 is so far *Vaporware*, you can't really say with any credibility that XBox 360 beats it in benchmarks. More importantly, however, Consoles are not now nor were they *ever* about benchmarks. Jason

Wow, look who's full of sh1t. Read the **** specs, the new system is based on the same technology as the PS3 is (PowerPC from IBM, both the Cell AND the XBox 360 CPU are derivatives of that chip). This entire topic is STUPID. How in the hell can you possibly determine what's the "best" out of three systems which AREN'T EVEN ON THE MARKET YET, particularly when TWO of them are VAPORWARE?! Come on, people, what happened to the *Intelligent* people who used to populate MSFN's forums? Have they all been completely supplanted by idiots? Jason

I'm sure they will change bit, but I am not sure that's the point. i agree that, with 6 months extra lead time Sony *should* have a more powerful system than Microsoft. As mentioned above I think it's clear that PS3 *does* have some advantages, but also that XBox 360 has some as well. Some of PS3's announced features are, I think, nonsensical. The inclusion of a router, for example, is simply a "look, we even have the kitchen sink!" feature that has little or nothing to do with helping developers be more innovative or productive with their games. It's a fluff feature. I also think that 6 USB ports are overkill. As it stands, we never got much use out of the TWO USB ports on PS2, and the firewire port, much touted by Sony at the launch, was to my knowledge *never* used by *any* peripheral. Again, I'm sure that both will have the "hardcore" fans who will buy exclusively their consoles. Personally, I think those people are rather foolish, limiting themselves in such a way. The fact is that every single one of the current gen systems (and previous gen, and the gen before that) and therefore reasonably the *next* gen systems will have games and gameplay experiences that can *only* be found on their systems. As a gamer, I enjoy *games*, and while I'm enthused and excited by the hardware, and annoyed by misleading pomp, hype and advertising, I fully expect that I will end up owning all three of the new systems. Whether I will get *any* of them at launch depends solely on the launch lineup. To date, the only two systems I've ever seen launch with "must have" games were Dreamcast and XBox. I didn't get a *good* PS2 game until a *year* after the system launched (Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X), and by that time the system had dropped by, if I recall, $100 or some such number. Anyway, so far we have surely not seen anyone announce an *underpowered* machine, so there's not a great deal of reason to complain just yet. THe fact that none of the systems has even *launched* yet should be enough to tell any reasonable person that declaring a "winner" and "loser" at this stage is the realm of abject stupidity alone. Jason

To be brutally honest...the XBox 360 dominates the PS3 in many vital areas. Read this, it has a great visual comparison of the specs between the two, and it is obvious that the XBox 360 is the more powerful system. Now, that doesn't mean it will do better on the market, but it has alot of potential meaning the better titles are most likely to be with Microsoft. Who knows, maybe Sony has a secret weapon!?! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I have read the MajorNelson.com posting already, but thank you. Again, it's true that the 360 has some *serious* advantages over the PS3 in some areas, and also true that the PS3 has some advantages over the XBox 360 in other areas. All in all, they come out pretty similar in *overall* capability. In any case, the real proof isn't going to be in the final hardware specs, it's going to be in the *quality* of the games that come out for the systems. Fortunately MS has managed to woo some of Sony's formerly exclusive major players, and that can have a huge impact overall. That XBox 360 will be getting *exclusive* RPG's from the (overly stated) legendary creator of Final Fantasy is a *Huge* boon to the 360, and Square's commitment to make games for the system is also a huge boon. Particularly if Sony doesn't ship a HDD with the PS3, expect things like, for example, Chrono Trigger 3 to appear as an XBox 360 game, and that, if it comes to pass, is a game which will sell millions of systems all by itself. MS would be very smart to subsidize that game's development for Square Jason

i don't smoke (crac or anything), and i don't like it to be suggested for your post is clear that you don't have any (even a small) idea of what you're talking. you must be one of those pro-xbox guys who hates anything that is only available for ps2. tekken is the fighting game with MOST combos so i'm wondering why control sucks... is an arcade game man, how controls can "suck"?! you must get outhere from your X-Barricade and look for other opinions... ign award, 9.3/10 at gamespot, 4.5/5 at gamepro, 4.5/5 at playstation.about ... man, your *bowling* never was a selling point, i said that in tekken you can do many more things than just "fighting", don't be that picky with my words soulcalibur is one of my other prefered games but you can't compare DOA or soulcalibur with tekken, is like comparing splinter cell with MGS. they both are similar of course, but not of the same taste... but hey, wait 1 minute, i see your point here! DOA and soulcalibur are available for the X console and tekken not!! lol ... so you want a game of racing and killing ... what if you return to the old 80s? buy carmaggedon again and keep the fun! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, I'm not at all one of those "pro XBox" guys who hates everything PS2. Far from it. As a matter of fact, I own XBox, PS2, GameCube, SNES, NES, Genesis, Sega CD, Master System, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, N64, Game Gear, GB Color, GBA, Atari Lynx, Sega Nomad and an Intellivision (of all things), along with a library of more than 300 games. Of those games about 40 are PS1 games (and they're pretty much the 40 that are actually *good* out of all the other garbage out for that system) and about 32 of which are PS2 games. Moreover, I know *exactly* what I am talking about. Yes, Tekken has the most combos. Big yay. I could say I have the most hair on my a** crack, does that make me special? No. Those combos are worthless if you can't routinely pull them off easily and en masse. Tekken's controls, at least up through version 4, are too unresponsive and slow to make for much fun, IMHO. The other games I mentioned have simply always been more fun, and that was equally true when they were for Dreamcast, before XBox ever came out. As for GT4, I could really care less. As I said before I *am* biased about racing games because I don't like them on the whole. I find them to be boring, tedius and irritating at best, barring the inclusion of slick gameplay features (a la the upcoming Full Auto from Sega, which I played at E3 and was frickin' awesome). Now please, go back and stroke your PS2 to sleep, your FanBoi-ism is showing. Jason

If you think that, then you *haven't read* the specs, interpreted the capabilities, understood the differences or similarities between the two systems. The fact is that, on paper even, the two systems are *very* close in capability. Yes, The PS3 has some advantages over the XBox 360 in certain areas. Yes, the XBox 360 has advantages over the PS3 in certain areas. Does either one utterly dominate the other? Not even close. Jason

man i was forced to quote you, tekken suck a**??? tekken is the best fighting game ever created (or at least the best without weapons). there are multiples game modes, i.e. on tekken tag you could play bowling or in tekken5 you can play something similar to "final fight", the old street fighting game. the controls are perfect for me, a couple of characters have more than 100 combos. tekken5 is known to use 98% of ps2 potential. i'm not a ps2 fanboy but a tekken fanboy about gt4 i have to agree but is a really funny game and people love to pass the drive licenses <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh, I'm sorry but you be smokin' CRAC, dude Tekken sucks BALLS and always has. The controls are miserable and unresponsive, the graphics are about the same as pretty much any other PS2 fighter, etc. And *bowling* as a selling point for a fighter? You've got to be kidding me. On any day of any year, Soul Calibur and DOA series' both kick the p*** out of Tekken. As for GT4, I have to admit a bias: I don't like racing games, at least, not unless the car has weapons and I can run over pedestrians. Now *that* is fun! We need a new "Carmageddon" game! Jason

How so? If you care to explain, I'd love to hear it, as I haven't said anything that isn't *well* documented about PS2/1 (which aren't *horrible* systems, by any stretch, they just aren't the end-all be-all of gaming that Sony claims) and reasonable speculation about PS3. Jason

Yes with that...is the xbox running 1 single prosessor with 3 cores or 3 seperate prossessors? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's 1 one processor with 3 cores, which is *literally* 3 processors on one physical chip. The multithreading gives it 6 threads, which isn't exactly like 6 full processors. Maybe more like 4.5-5 full processors worth of threading capability. Now as for Kutaragi's comments, puh-lease. His opinion is clearly biased and his sole goal is to sell more PS3's. He very clearly underlines his ignorance of the XBox 360's architecture by stating that all MS has done is increase graphics capability over the original XBox, which simply isn't true (and even a cursory evaluation of published specifications will make that fact quite clear.). In particular, it's clear enough that Microsoft has, in this current generation, soundly kicked Sony's a** in areas like Online play, gamer interaction, community building, content distribution, etc. etc. In terms of advancing gameplay design, Sony's PS2 accomplished *nothing* new. Microsoft has done an enormous amount of innovation in this area, with XBox Live being the clearest example of that (an example which, one might also point out, that Sony is so far behind that they amount to little more than a blip on the scope.) When it comes to *innovative* games and gameplay, Sony doesn't even register on the radar of what's been done and is *being* done by companies like Nintendo, Sega and a few others. Sony so far, from Generation 1 of Playstation to Generation 2 has given more and more of the same old games and clones of the same old games. Aside from a tiny handful of well made games from companies like Konami, Square (and Square doesn't even bother *innovating* anymore, they just make very good games in the same old mold) and Namco, there is very little worthy of note on PS2. I highly doubt that the inclusion of a router is going to enhance or spur innovative gameplay for the new Playstation. Jason

hey, I never said it hasn't had a few issues, did I? However, I can't say that I know anyone *personally* who's had a problem, and I've had mine since launch with *zero* issues. Too bad I can't say the same for Sony. IMO, they didn't get the PS2 *right* until the miniaturized version, which I replaced my old PS2 with because it was on the blink *again*. My point was just that Sony's got *nothing* to show right now, they **** well know, they're scared sh1tless that Microsoft will take the market by storm when they hit 6 months or more before Sony can, and they're desperate to try and steal some of that thunder. From all appearances, Sony got caught with their pants down and is now scrambling to try *desperately* to confuse and mislead consumers in an effort to prevent the XBox 360 from having a huge launch. Jason

Oh yeah, I saw this playing on PC and XBox 360 at E3. Gorgeous looking game, I can't wait! Jason

You must be out of the loop entirely, LOL I went through FOUR PS2's during the first 90 days of launch due to the (very well documented--google it!) problem with the laser going bad. The initial batch of PS2's were *awful*. This was recently repeated with the PSP launch, where tens of thousands were returned due to multiple bad pixels on their screens. I didn't buy one, but my *one* friend who did buy one went through THREE of them before he got one without dead pixels. As for the PS2's games, Sony originally claimed a "66 million polygons!" figure as compared to the Dreamcast's 3-4 million. Of course, what Sony failed to mention is that Sega's figure included textured, shaded, lighted polygons, whereas Sony's figure included flat, unshaded, unlit polygons. Apply your effects (textures, lighting, shading) and voila! PS2 drops to around 4-5 million polygons. In short, they *lied* to the public and to their fans in order to kill their competition. Take a look at any game that has a PS2 version AND a Dreamcast version. In all cases the DC version looks as good or better. An excellent example is DOA 2, which looked better on the Dreamcast thanks to its native support for AA, which PS2 cannot do in hardware. If you want to see an example of misleading information, look at Sony's press conference this year for pS3. First they show you the Cell processor diagrams and claim that at 3.8Ghz it will process 2.18 TFlops as compared to the XBox 360's 1.15 TFlops. A few pages later they show PS3 specs with a 3.2Ghz CPU, yet they keep the 2.18 TFlops figure. So are we to believe that a roughly 20% DECREASE in CPU speed for CELL has absolutely no performance difference? If that's true, then why bother even *talking* about a 3.8Ghz since it offers no benefit over the 3.2Ghz part, which will obviously get greater yields? Watch Sony's announcement point for point. It attempts to do exactly ONE thing: It attempts to take the main points of XBox 360 and 1up them. Then they start throwing in nonsense features that have no business in a game console, such as a freaking *router*. Then we get a bunch of pre-rendered videos (exception: Unreal Engine 3 demo, but even that was scripted and had no interactivity besides moving the camera) running on hardware that wasn't even described but was *presumed* to be an early build of a PS3. So we've got pre-rendered videos and concept "we think we can make the games look like this" videos, but NO actual gameplay and *nothing* functional enough for a hands on demonstration. Sony showed *not one* playable piece of software at E3, nor even a view of the hardware that you could see or examine. Instead they had some plastic shells, under glass, with a little sign saying "Concept only". Well *that's* nice. Honestly, Sony had NO business making an announcement at this E3. It's painfully obvious that they have *nothing* to show and that the PS3, as it stands, is pure, unadulterated *VAPORWARE*. They had one purpose and one alone in making any such announcement at this E3: To attempt to derail Microsoft, and they're willing to mislead and defraud the public at large in order to do it. Jason

I've preordered Battlefield 2, so that's mine. Right now I am playing Jade Empire and being absorbed by World of Warcraft (which has large chunks of suckage to it but which is nevertheless addicting). Jason

@ JasonGW : I was only posting the article because it explained what SPE stood for and how it was involved in the whole process. By no means was I posting this as accurate specs, just an informative article on SPE for sonu27. I just noticed something...you and me joined on the same day and have relatively the same number of posts! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh, Atari..., here check this out: Atari 2600 History. This sucker came out in *1977*, 28 years ago! I do agree that gameplay will *eventually* improve in the new generation, as it always does, it's just that it won't be *first* priority. Unfortunately, the storytelling and gameplay aspects always seem to really hit their stride near the *end* of a console's life, LOL. Not *always*, but often, especially in the last couple of generations. I'm still not convinced we'll have a boom like the SNES's in the near future as a result of all the copycat games that developers are churning out left and right these days. I do remain hopeful, though Jason

Note that the above article is based on old and incomplete information. For starters, PS3's CELL runs at 3.2Ghz, not ">4Ghz", indicating that they aren't able to manufacture the faster variant in quantity. Note also that the processor they discussed has 8 SPE's, PS3 has 7. Note also that they don't mention a critical fact: The SPE's aren't capable of running general computing instructions as the main PowerPC based core is. The SPE's are highly specialized and use a *different* instruction set from the Cell's primary core. Again, this is *not* synonymous with an "8 core" processor, and a direct comparison to such a beast is inaccurate and, at best, very sloppy reporting. Jason

Well I agree for sure that it should be an interesting battle. What worries me far more than the power of the systems (both are absurdly powerful) is that game developers may get so mired in the "it's gotta be gorgeous" mentality that they skimp on gameplay, storytelling, etc. To some degree it even happened with the *current* generation early on, and we're only now starting to see games that are really special. In a way, it's sad that this generation is coming to an end, because it means a "reset" to the developers, who now have to start a new learning curve and see what level of graphics they can get from the hardware. Jason

I'd like the PS3 better if it actually *existed*, but I'm afraid that pre-rendered videos and empty plastic shells under glass aren't all that impressive to me. I DO like the *design* of the PS3 better than the XBox 360, but I do NOT like Sony's hype, misinformation and blatant dishonesty to the audience that makes them anything other than the trash manufacturer that they really are. Jason

LOL, I guess. Look at it this way: In the "end", no one will *ever* reign supreme. That's the beauty of a free market that allows for innovation and continuous improvement. Nintendo was on top for years, Sega snatched it away for awhile then Nintendo got it back. Sony and Sega both botched the 32/64bit generation and Sony got their foot in the door and raced to the top. Then Microsoft stepped in and, while they didn't dethrone Sony they made some huge inroads, even surpassing Nintendo. It's far too early to call the upcoming generation's "winner", but it's safe to say that it will be a LOT closer this time around than last time. Sony won't be on top forever, they'll lose the #1 spot, guaranteed. NO ONE rules forever. And thank goodness for that! Jason

No, there are *not* 8 processors in PS3. There is *ONE* 3.2Ghz processor and 7 SPE's. SPE's are for carrying out simple instructions such as streaming video or continuous floating point operations. It's accurate to say the SPE's run at 3.2Ghz only in the sense that the main processor, of which they are a subcomponent, runs at 3.2Ghz. The SPE's themselves are *not* full function processors, nor do they even understand the general instruction set of the CPU's core. They are, again, *Simple purpose* units. They have no access to a cache, nor any direct access to memory, nor any ability to perform common game programming functions such as multiple branch prediction, fetches or anything else that involves interaction with the memory subsystem. While CELL itself is an interesting and potentially very useful microarchitecture, it is NOT well suited to gaming, and its inclusion in the PS3 is for marketing purposes *only*. Bear in mind, too, that the primary core of the CELL processor is based off the PowerPC design from IBM, the same chip that powers Macintosh computers and another variant, the XBox 360 CPU (which has three full-purpose cores, each with multiple thread support enabled for a total of 6 concurrent processing threads). Jason