I keep hearing people chanting “Halo 3” in unison. The collective chants are becoming so numerous that they are beginning to send shockwaves through the world.
Anyway, I hate to be captain obvious here, but it’s clear to anyone who can see that Microsoft needs to bring more Japanese third party developers on-board somehow if the Xbox 360 hopes to succeed in Japan where its predecessor could only fail. The time has come for Microsoft to start writing cheques…
And we keep discussing how familiar brandnames serve as the prime bait to lure in the masses while forgetting the fact that Sony and Microsoft more or less cancel each other out (outside of Japan anyway). I’m afraid that even Sony can’t rely on the familiarity of its brand alone to ply its trade on the unsuspecting public when Microsoft is everywhere you go. As if Sony’s brandname was still trustworthy at all after all the faulty PS2s Sony sold to the world which stopped reading disks and started scratching them instead.
[quote=“GehnTheBerserker”]
Care to explain yourself a little bit better?[/quote]
When Sony launched the PS2 in Japan it was the cheapest DVD player on the market. Sony must have sold each PS2 at a huge loss, but could afford to do so in the knowledge that they would recoup their losses from console game sales later. At that stage, all that mattered was establishing a large userbase.
I think in Japan the support of Square-Enix, DVD functionality and Sony’s hype all contributed to make the PS2 the success that it was. It actually surprises me that Sega was unable to retain its 5 million strong Saturn userbase in Japan when Sega launched the Dreamcast.
Hahaha… Seriously, though. Despite how important people say graphics are, people still continue to support the PS2, which is the “lesser” console in terms of graphics. But, even saying so, you can’t honestly say that the best games on PS2 don’t contend with the content on the Cube and Xbox. Perhaps not the very top end stuff, but with the average stuff.
And in the next generation, the differences are going to be a lot more subtle. It’ll provide lots of stuff for the enthusiasts to get, uh, enthused over, but for the average joe, chance are they’re hardly going to be able to tell the difference.
[quote=“GehnTheBerserker”]
Care to explain yourself a little bit better?[/quote]
Take a look at the PS2’s starting lineup both in the US and in Japan (not sure what it was like in Europe). There weren’t any games that could really be considered killer apps for nearly a year. The first one was Onimusha, really. Yet, the console flew off the shelves. A lot of it had to do with the hype going into the launch of the console, but a lot of people justified their purchases because it served the dual purpose of being a game machine, and a DVD player (and normal DVD players were much more expensive back then, particularly in Japan). I don’t think it was any coincidence that sales of the Matrix DVD soared in Japan (and the US, I believe) immediately after the PS2 launch.
And Geoffrey, you’re right about MS’ need for more Japanese developer support. However, do not underestimate the power of the Sony brand. In many market studies I’ve seen, Sony registers as the top (most of the time) trusted brand by electronic consumers under 30… the prime gamer audience.
You were the one who laughed at me when I said graphics wasn’t my priority in a game (well ok : gameplay too)
I really don’t mind the PS2’s graphics.You have a point there when you say it will be less a priority this generation.But when I have to decide between to void-ish games (as far as background ambient/story goes) like DMC and Ninja Gaiden : that’s when graphics matter.
Regardless the PS2 ranks higher in my book than the PS1.I really thougth about getting it for several times now.VF4,recycled DC games,beeing able to play all LoK games in one system (DVD bonus with Soul Reaver 2 for this system alone) and Ico (after hearing countless propraganda).But the PS2 has a more plug n play agenda.I can really name only one series of games on the PS2 that excites me as far as story is concerned (Legacy of Kain).
And yes, that’s what the kind of answer I wanted (concerning the DVD).Come to think of it : I know people who really bought the PS2 mainly for the DVD rom.
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed at you (I may have disagreed, though), but I think you’re missing my point. Graphics do matter. It’s just the differences between the consoles’ power matters less because overall, graphics have gotten to a point (for top level games) that they are all “good enough.” There are plenty of games out there that still look like arse, so you can’t automatically assume that people will buy anything.
More and more, publishers/developers are moving towards making their big announcements before E3. Why? Because unless you have earth-shattering news, or have the killer app of the show, it’ll get lost in the crowd. Drop the bomb before the show, and hopefully people will be interested enough in whatever it is you announced to come to your booth to check it out. If you announce it at the show, some people may not even hear about it.
Makes you wonder what the entire point of E3 really is =\
It was a figure of speech.
Oh adn I never used the term “don’t matter”.I always used the term “priority”
About CELL : I had read that news earlier today I thought it was somewhat old news( that’s why i didn’t post it ; the date wasn’t listed where I read it) but it all sounded like gibberish to me.
I really want to know what the specifics of the XBox 360 will be since apparentely CELL will be able to run at around 3 GHz reliably and have 8 cores running simultaneously (did i spell that right). Sounds like it will be quite a machine.
RE: Swag and booth babes - Not so much anymore. Used to be so, in the more flamboyant days of E3, but now it’s more and more business oriented… which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, considering how loud and distracting the environment is.
RE: Cell technology - 8 processors? Where did you hear that? The whole point of Cell technology was that the system could “take advantage of other Cell chips and utilize their idle cycles.” The problem with that is that you’d still have to program to the lowest common denominator (i.e. a single processor), and possibly have the ability to scale up. But, at that point, it’s really no different than programming for PC, in terms of difficulty. One of the key things in consoles is that the configuration never changes. Adding multiple graphical/AI/whatever settings just creates that much more work for developers, pushing dev costs even higher. And in order to really capitalize on the system, you’d have to leave your PS3 hooked up to a network powered on. All the time. If everyone turned it off and disconnected it, where would you get all the “extra” power from?
RE: Cell technology - 8 processors? Where did you hear that? The whole point of Cell technology was that the system could “take advantage of other Cell chips and utilize their idle cycles.” The problem with that is that you’d still have to program to the lowest common denominator (i.e. a single processor), and possibly have the ability to scale up. But, at that point, it’s really no different than programming for PC, in terms of difficulty. One of the key things in consoles is that the configuration never changes. Adding multiple graphical/AI/whatever settings just creates that much more work for developers, pushing dev costs even higher. And in order to really capitalize on the system, you’d have to leave your PS3 hooked up to a network powered on. All the time. If everyone turned it off and disconnected it, where would you get all the “extra” power from?
It says it is capable eight processing cores that work in sync with the central power core. As for the dev costs and all, I agree it would be harder and more time consuming to create games, but eventualy it will be streamlined and engines and such will be released to make the process easier.
I’m not exactly a tech junky so I may be wrong, read the article and correct me if I am.
But it doesn’t actually say what those additional “synergistic” processors do, or how fast they are running. Time will tell, I suppose. If they actually are 8 additional CPUs, good luck programming for that thing
As far as I can tell they are just additional processing threads that coincide with the core processor. Maybe they work along the lines of Hyper Threading?
It does say that stable speeds up to 4.2 GHz will be possible, but again the manufacturer will probably tone it down to around three and a half due to power constraints.
Programming for Xbox - Since I’ve never actually done any programming myself, I can’t say for certain, but according to everyone that I’ve spoken to, it’s very easy. It is apparently very similar to programming for a PC, so if you’ve got any experience with that, it’s a piece of cake. There’s no need to synchronize various CPUs, etc.
Xbox 360 name - I think this name would be extremely confusing for consumers. There isn’t a blatant “2” in the name, so a lot of people would be confused as to whether or not it is the next Xbox, and could also lead people to think that this is simply a re-designed Xbox or something. Bad idea.
The Japanese market is not make or break. What they need to do is steal more marketshare from the English speaking countries from Sony. Although it is noted how much ms seems to be trying in Asia. For example, there’s a tournament in Singapore scheduled this year with 70 participating countries, which is much bigger than Evo and the -only- two console games there are for xbox - a minor console in the Asian market.
I think ms, with all it’s money had something to do with that, but that’s just my theory. You’d think a tournament in Asia would host games that are actually the most popular (Sega’s Virtua fighter’s, Capcom’s Streetfighters, Tekkens etc…), but they host two games that are on the least popular console in Asia. It’s all good though. From what i’ve read on forums discussing Evo, they tend to be bias towards certain games. So a bigger more important tourny getting recognition for these games is a plus.
Approx 800 players will be advanced to Grand Final in Singapore, and it’s free lodging and transport providing you managed to win your country’s WCG tournament for DOA2U. worldcybergames.com/wcg2005/ … alinfo.asp
Never thought about it like that. Personally they just want a 3 in there somewhere to compare to ps3. The probably want people to short it down to xbox3 or x3 or something.
