360 vs PS3: a developer sounds off.

#1

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-348-1.htm

short answer: XBox 360.

#2

Seems hard to refute that, but...I'm sure Brains will come back with something..!

#3

haha. I will and wanted to do so now. tear that article apart... lol. no, not up to that level. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> BUT, the site is blocked by the corp firewall. because of the "hardcore"?!

well. i browsed through it this morning and noticed that he from time to time is not being fair. with CPU he says "360 clear winner" - or something alike, while later on he mentions that eventually CELL will be faster. strange that. he could have a draw, no?

price? he says that ps3 is more expensive. according to the calculations I make, it is the other way around: you end up paying way more in a 5y span with 360, than you do with ps3. acquisition price is more expensive, but if you count in the services it quickly changes. we'll not talk about hw you do not get with 360.

and so on... there are some things which I find strange, but well... it is the guy's opinion - an ill-founded one - but still his opinion. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

btw: aj, welcome to the games threads! /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

#4

He mentions "IF ANYONE BOTHERS, the system is capable of some real power in the future, but in development time, it is not efficient. Maybe that will change, just like by time a blu-ray library worth having is around, there will be a cheaper player on the market,.. and it will be one that will not tax the drive on your gaming console.

and also

Ars Technica has one of the best and fair write-ups I have seen of the PS3, including many things that Sony has not yet advertised. They say it is a 6 out of 10, and in every complaint, it is because it doesn't do something the 360 does. http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/ps3.ars

Short Answer: Ars Technica gave PS3 a 6 out of 10, and the XBox 360 got 9 out of 10 at debut, even before XBox Live was upgraded and the overheat issue was taken care of!

QUOTEThe PS3 doesn't have any grand ideas; Sony wanted something high-tech, so they started from scratch with the processor and GPU, but what does it get them? Very little so far. The controller is a mash-up of ideas from their old systems, the 360's triggers, and the Wii's motion-sensing capabilities, but once it has that tech it doesn't really know what to do with it. The Blu-ray adds cost, but adds very little to the gaming experience for the user. It's great as a media player, but for those of us who love games first and foremost, we have to look at it skeptically. The PS3 is a system with no core message, and that is what keeps it from being elegant. Will it do great things in the future? I hope so, the possibility and potential are certainly there. For now, it's power looking for a mission statement.

One significant issue with the PS3 is a lack of proper scaling. We know that if your HDTV can't display 720p, you will get knocked down to 480p in some games, which is a shame. The other problem shows itself in Blu-ray movies, with the system having trouble scaling things down from 1080p if your set doesn't support that resolution. In some instances, this results in a grainy image. Hopefully this can be addressed via a software update.

Sony wants to push new formats; we want to play great games and have a good time doing it. We want every bit of that experience, from the menus to the loading times, to help us get into that fantasy world and keep us there. Sadly, with all the new technology, Sony appears to have neglected the overall gaming experience.

Which is exactly what I was afraid of. I want a gaming console, and they are selling me something else that seems like gaming capacity is an afterthought. Those who say "It's a computer!" fine, it's a computer,.. get it out of the gaming industry, and put something in its place.

Make the "Other Station" and sell it to people who want it,.. but damn, Sony, don't forget to give us a PLAYstation worth it's weight in power-ups.

The only thing that makes this even REMOTELY interesting to gamers is you can buy and download PS-1 games for your PSP, and apparently that is the only way to do it. which is more BULLSHIT luring gamers to buy things they don't need or already have, than coolness that adds to my gaming experience.

#5

hmm. a hardware site which dishes the most accomplished hardware product this side of the century. its engineering is a masterpiece and only 6 out of 10?!

oh well. to each their own.

#6

Brains,

what you forget is Hardware is only part of the gaming world. A real gamer can make use of an Abacus and a set of dice for hours... and never set the same rules twice.

what makes a console THIS generation is interconnectivity. The Mii approach is innovative, but eclectic. Playing XBox live is IMMERSIVE into millions of gamers and with a few simple clicks, you can find someone and tally their scores in every game they played, and have them side by side with you own. You can always have an idea of what a person can do how they match up to you, and what they like to play, and what they are currently playing. Not so of the PS3.

Better yet, I can be playing Tony Hawk Project 8, and my friend can be playing a different game, and we can still chat about whatever.. oh, and be listening to our own custom soundtracks that fit better with our approach to those games...

Far as I can tell, the Sony PS3 is not about connectivity. The online gaming experience is non-unified, no track record of a persons progress through the console offerings, and no chatting with people no playing the game you are. and no custom soundtracks. let them fix all of that, come out with some innovative titles, and THEN maybe we can talk about the hardware, which does seem impressive for media, and hopefully later for games.

#7

yes. you are partly correct, but you are talking software. things which really can get improved upon by Sony... no?!

but "ars technica" is about the art of technology and although technology also can be software engineering, I do seem to more connect it to hardware engineering. so, either the name of the site is ill chosen, either they have drifted away from their original intention or either they are not looking at this engineering masterpiece wiht unbiased goggles. in other words, raum, have you seen hardware failures reported, except for the ones you have now in your avatar?

btw. i love that avatar, since it is so general. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

#8

QUOTE(Brains @ Nov 22 2006, 04:01 PM) yes. you are partly correct, but you are talking software. things which really can get improved upon by Sony... no?!

...sure it CAN, and by time this system is worth it, it hopefully WILL.

ars technica is for pc enthusiasts and technophiles. They are gaming whores, and will play test everything. They say very little about the hardware that is not complimentary. but they do draw into question the Blu-ray question, and openly wonder what comes in the future. I will be so bold as to say three to five years from now, this system will either be worth getting as a gaming console, or a beast of a different market entirely.

The ps3 replacement came in today at my game store. They trust me so much I helped set it up while they were swamped. I was literally sitting with it not ten feet from the door, while everone was behind the counter. So, I helped set it up while I was waiting for a special order that might be in shipment, and no more than sixteen people test it out, and none over the age of thirteen were impressed, except one soccer mom who had no interest in playing games. There is a HUGE fan above and to the left of the console that is strapped into place vertically. Of the play testers, half bought a 360, and the othe half were curious kids. In comparison, they had more than thirty people play the wii demo, and fifteen people buy xBox 360 from that crowd. Many resolved more convnced than ever that a Wii and a 360 is the way to go. Most who played the Wii Exicte Truck far preferred it over the MotorStorm. That one soccer mom and her kid liked NBA 07.

On two occasions there was a "hmmm..." about it, while people were going nuts over the Wii.

As for MotorStorm, not a must have title. Painted textures form the foilage on the landscape that admittedly does have a good feel for broken terrain. The crash with the cars breaking is cool at first, but seems far too canned to be boasting physics unparalleled by any other console. The First Person racing view looks nothing like the mud kicked up originally, and the fake mud cloud effect makes that view which is genuinely OH-KAY, look like crap. If you could turn it off, it would be nice, because that is a really good first person racer. The controller has no good feel to it and I felt the molding ridge on the SIXAXIS, and the canned soundtrack got on everyone's nerves within the first half hour. It is a racer game, with some thrills for that crowd, I'm sure. I played it for two races, and whooped it solid. It is way easy for a racing game... (typical pump the accelerator around curves, and drive the booster on the end of curves to maximize the straightways *yawn*) on that setting. From what I saw today, the demo of the ps3 will sell consoles; 360 consoles. Unless they ramp it up a NOTCH or five.

In fact, three times, there were guys who played Motorstorm and tested the demo movies, blew it off, and bought a 360. I kept seeing this powdery effect on the trailers and it was damn annoying. Anyone looking at the Marvel trailer will see it. Lair looks like it could be fun, but not visually intimidating and part of the trailer looked BAD, specially the fire effect of the breath.. just dragon on dragon goodness in a market woefully short of it. Genji was laughable as an obvious Dynasty Warriors game with horrid dialogue and odd stancing for a combat heavy game.

As for defects from consumers and retail, I have witnessed two retail, one was a setting error by the employee and one was fine when turned on. I know of three people who reliably have had issues, one was corrected on a hard restart; one was related to networking, and one was just a bad unit. I have heard of four other defect from people who I know, or have proven to have ps3's open and playing. Most everyone else I know who has a unit, still has it boxed. Still, the reliablity of the hardware doesn't seem to be an issue.

#9

best article on the tech specs to date: http://dpad.gotfrag.com/xbox360/story/35372/?spage=1

and sober approach to the claims and ablities of both systems.

#10

Lemme just clear this up, all of the articles mentioned in this thread, except that last one which raum posted (which is a good read imho), are complete bullcrap.

If you find there's a section you don't understand why it isn't bullcrap, care to ask..