With the latest info from the GDC and Sonys surprises there, where do you all stand on the latest gen console wars?

I am starting to like the idea of the ps3 now, but the price is still a huge roadblock. I own a wii, and i should finish zelda just in time for paper mario, but there doesnt look like there is a lot on the horizon for the wii. The 360 is coming out with a $700 Gears of War bundle that looks very attractive.

what do you think?

pc 4lyfe

xbox !

a game ain't a game without a keyboard


PC 4 LYFE YO.

so u can type stuff like 'sk' and 'g0trego!!' between rounds yo

That Little Big Planet is the only thing about PS3 that I'd rate over its competitors at the moment, the game itself looks fun and the concept of community driven content sounds really good. The problem is that it's still just that, a concept so it will be interesting to see what Sony make of it. Home seems like a good idea to consolidate their online platform, but the whole Second Life MMO f*****ry factor of it has kept my interest pretty low on that one.

Nintendo Wii got off to a good start but it looks like it's in for a massive drought in decent titles and over time I can see most multiplatform titles only coming on PS3/X360/PC because it would be too much work to port down to Wii. On that note though I can also see a lot of third party devs making Wii exclusive titles so it's pretty much reliant on what they can come up with and the frenquency they get released.

Xbox 360 looks to be the well established platform with thier s*** already all sorted and now just trucking along. Surprises from the competitors and mainstream consumer support could see it get overtaken. IMO for dedicated gamers it all comes down to what exclusive games each have and what you prefer to play.

PC will be business as usual, except Games for Windows Live which im still unsure about. I think I much prefer the public server model than subscribing to the Microsoft overlords for PC.

The 360 is coming out with a $700 Gears of War bundle that looks very attractive.

You can already get an Xbox 360 bundle with Gears of War from JB hi-fi for $640.

I rate my consoles on the number of titles I'd buy (or download)

PS3: Home, flOw, Little Big Planet

Xbox 360: Gears of War, Halo 3

Wii: Zelda, Mario Galaxy, Mario Paper, Metroid, SSBB, Pikman, Mario Kart

You can clearly see the difference in the types of games the consoles have.

PC: Spore, Crysis, Stalker, Half-Life 2 E2, UT3

I use my PC mainly for first person shooters.

Consoles for fighting, racing, and soccer.

Rest = lets go spew. (Some exlusions apply - eg: gears of war/ninja gaiden/Ya Mum action type games.)


last edited by Suckah-Free at 12:03:44 15/Mar/07

Sony has today announced that the European iteration of its PlayStation 3 console has been reconfigured to exclude internal hardware dedicated to backwards compatibility, a measure taken in order to reduce manufacturing costs.

Read the article here:

Sony cuts costs...and features

There are various sources around the net saying this is the case. Apparently at the moment Sony are selling PS3 consoles at a loss. The reduced backwards compatibility will be a 'feature' of Aussie PAL systems as well.

What do you think of this?
Is it an issue for people?

What do you think of this?
Is it an issue for people?

The cheaper models without hardware emulation for backwards compat are going to start being distributed in US and Japan soon also.

does that mean there will be an option to buy one (which im guessing will be more expensive) that has backwards compatability.

Thats so f***ing stupid making a playstation console thats not backwards compatible.

I guess backwards compatibility is only really going to be a short term issue for most people. Even though you might have a favourite game it is likely that there will be a revamped version out on the next gen console, or that some other new fandangled game will take its place.
How many gamers (aside from retro freaks) actually go back and play older games when a new version/game is available?
Having said that, I know people have had issues for instance with the THPS series, stating that the newer versions (Underground etc) are less fun for whatever reason.
In this 'next-big-thing' climate of cultural consumption where new is considered better, and people buy the latest with little consideration to actual improvement, I guess Sony have weighed up that the vast majority of consumers will overlook the backwards compatibility issue.

However when you take into account the PS3's hefty price tag, Sony taking a beating because of high production costs, the removal of features (which may or may not be replaced by firmware upgrades), an initially unreliable release date and general lack of enthusiasm from the gaming community (as far as I can see) the PS3 may struggle to take a lion's share of the market.

And that's not even mentioning the uncertain future of Blu-ray, although the PS3 seems to be getting reasonable reviews in terms of the quality of the Blu-ray technology included in the console.

Personally my interest in consoles these days is the network capabilities that are on offer in order to utilise multimedia and for use in conjunction with my PC.

The backwards compatibility thing isn't THAT big of an issue. Its not like they've removed backwards compatibility entirely, its just that they've taken the emotion engine chip out of the PS3s and they're doing the emulation in software now. Currently it can't support as many titles using software emulation as it could with hardware emulation, but theres a new version of the firmware due to drop when the console launches here that improves its support. With the new firmware its supposed to support something like 1200 ps1 and ps2 games, and I'd assume that includes all the big ones.

What I find dodgy about the whole thing is they've taken hardware out of the PS3 and they're selling what basically amounts to a cut-down product for the same price as the original one WITH the emulation hardware. Smells like more Sony lameness. I think I'll wait a while and pick one up cheap off Ebay once people buy them and get sick of playing Flow.

Just today it looked like the new software based backwards compatibility on the Playstation 3 wouldn't be so bad. With 1200 titles everything is sure to be grand right? Well not so fast my European (and soon to be rest of the world) brethren. Would you like to play God of War, MGS 2, MGS 3, Shadow of the Colossus, Guitar Hero 2, Okami, GTA: Liberty City Stories, Ratchet & Clank 3, Lumines Plus on your shiny new PS3?

Well you can't.

But you can play Eragon. Dear god it's Barbie Horse Adventure's all over again.

Source: Engadget

Editor's Note: It should be noted that this was done on the 1.5 Firmware, not the 1.6. These titles COULD still be playable.

Doesn't sound too good.

Nintendo needs to supply more to keep up with demand, there are a host of great Nintendo games coming out, but it is suffering from all the f***ing PS2/PSP ports. Lazy publishers.

360 has a consistent flow of great games coming out all year :D

PS3 will not be so much of a market leader this time around, in a few years it should see some better sales when the price drops and the market expands to the more casual players that have already been seduced by the Wii.



last edited by partyhat at 14:38:45 15/Mar/07

These "hosts" of great Nintendo games coming really arent proven winners IMO. Sure they're new titles in popular franchises, Mario, Metroid et al but they still could end up not living up to their hype. The main problem is that they just keep getting pushed further and further back. The Wii won't survive on first party titles alone.

^ totally agree.

ps3 didnt market very well at all with its 1000 price tag (which only older gamers, or teenagers with rich parents can buy, it would take a 16yr old a f***ing long time to save up 1000 compared to like 400 or however much wii/360 are).

360 is a more rounded -for everyone- kind of console. lots of games, very diverse. Reasonable priced i guess. (i personally wouldnt spend 600 on a console, 400 would be the max i think)

Wii is cool cause its different, but there will be nowhere near the amount of variety of games as 360 and ps3 has.

Editor's Note: It should be noted that this was done on the 1.5 Firmware, not the 1.6. These titles COULD still be playable.

The 1.6 firmware is the one that will be available when the console launches in Europe and here, so its a bit premature to really say anything about what level of backwards compatibility support we'll have until games have been tried on that.

And yeah, theres a severe drought of Wii games, and theres only a handful of ones on the horizon that I'm looking forward to, which is a shame. On the other hand, theres a staggering number of 360 titles I'm looking forward to, so as much as I enjoy the Wii, I'd have to say the 360 is winning so far this generation for me.

Khel has dreams of fat Italian plumbers jumping on his mushrooms.

Don't we all?

motorstorm makes me want to buy a ps3 =(

What's this latest stuff from GDC?

I think most gamers are feeling the exact same about the PS3 atm... "That's s*** hot, I wish I had a grand to waste". The fact that they still dont' make money, even at such a high price. This is hardly surprising, Sony lost money on the sale of each of their previous consoles until they reached an advanced state of maturity. Money from game licencing is where the money is at as far as Sony is confirmed.

I for one love our current 3-way system. I think it makes for a healthier market, with a heavy interest on what the consumer wants. This generation has seen some massive changes and a lot of improvements aimed at what players want. For example, online play, motion sensing controllers, large built in storage, backwards compatibility (sorta). I'd hate to see any of the big 3 get knocked out and have to put up with the old Sega/Nintendo duopoly.

At the end of the day, I think the PS3 may turn out to be a sleeping giant yet to awaken. Sure the price may be ridiculous, but it's extremely feature rich and powerful. The platform also has a massive library of titles that brought many consumers to the PS1/2 (including myself) like MGS, Gran Tourismo, Tekken, Final Fantasy etc. Even if it doesn't catch up in sales, Nintendo's last 2 consoles are proof that you don't need to outperform your competitors to survive.

To sum up, I live in a house with PCs, PS2s, Wiis, Gamecubes, Xbox and Xbox360s and I would honestly recommend all of them. There truly is no s*** console. YES, some of those are pluralised.

wii60 is the go.

PS. I only have an old xbox. PC's do everything better (FPS, Racing, RTS & RPG) except casual gaming.

Consoles rock for button mashing and media centers.

I'd rather play most things on console these days, except for RTS and FPS, but even FPS can work good if its made from the ground up to be a console FPS.

360 ftw

wii is something I'm interested in, but not at it's current price (I know it's cheap but with 3 extra controllers on top, it's not) and not until there's a larger library of games, maybe in a year or 2.

PS3, the only game I've seen so far that interests me is Little Big Planet and even then I'll wait til they're <$300 like I did with the PS2. Any other games I can get something similar or better on the 360.

But honestly, I can't afford to have more than one console as it is, on top of my PC and DS there's a ton of games on the 360 I want to get and I can't afford them all, upcoming and released games, Guitar Hero 2, Crackdown, Mass Effect, Halo 3 and an arseton of Live Arcade Games.

well I have spent $600 on a Wii with the Sports + Play + Smooth moves and it basically sits under the TV gathering dust

Wario smooth moves with its 200 minigames is a better indicator of what kind of cool games coming on the horizon but it seems like we might be waiting a while :(

I really hope Smooth Moves isn't an indicator of the games that are coming, minigames are fun and all, but I've had my fill of novelty minigames now, we all know what the controls can do now and the novelty has worn off, time for some REAL games.

Galaxy is next followed by Prime then Brawl.

Wish some 3rd party developers did something impressive on a Nintendo for once.

People forget the things Sony have done in the past it seems, guess Sony have no reason to change their ways. :(

Capcom are bringing Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles to the Wii, supposedly a whole new game which ties the previous games together. There's also No More Heroes from Grasshopper Interactive, which has a similar style to Killer7.

And talk off a sequel to Red Steel, which should iron out the control problems with the first.

If they couldn't get the controls right after play-testing the first game, what makes you think they're clever enough to figure it out for the sequel? Remember, the studio that made Red Steel also made 187: Ride or Die.

It was rushed for release, and what is 187: Ride or Die? Should I ask?

187: Ride or Die is a hip-hop/urban-inspired car combat game. It was so crap, they didn't even ask full price for it.

8(
I now have no hope for Red Steel 2

360ftw,
cause when im not playing the steady stream of awesome games that get released im pwning noobs playing video uno.

They had heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaps of time to fix the controls in Red Steel, they had been flaky at best since the very first, earliest demonstrations of the game. The controls were hardly the only problem with it though, it was just not a very good game in general: boring characters/story, boring weapons, some truly horrible textures and models, sub-par performance in sections, extremely repetitive, shallow sword bits.

The only level I actually enjoyed was that crazy amusement park one, where you get attacked by power rangers, just because it was so absolutely bizarre. The rest of the game was forgettable at best.

last edited by Khel at 00:10:49 16/Mar/07

I haven't played it, but I have read a few reviews which gave it 80%ish
I figured it was a good game behind the poor controls