The Official Console Talk Thread

pigpen81 · Post by **pigpen81** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:49 pm

Guys, I loved the debate going on in the PS3 impressions thread even though it wasn't necessarily impressions. Let's make this the console talk thread.

I have no interest in the PS3 at the moment and don't foresee getting one until 2008 at the earliest.

The Wi360 is incredible right now.

GOW, Zelda, Wii Sports and even the BK games are making me extremely happy.

The Wii has brough back simple fun to my gaimng and even brought my family into my hobby.

I am contemplating Wii Madden just becasue of the Wiimote.

My wife Wiiboxed the other night and was drenched in sweat and smiles.

I cannot find a Wiimote anywhere to save my life. In fact, I can't find any Wiiccesories anywhere save for console organizers. For what it is worth, the PS3 accesories are plentiful.

The next year is going to be a blast to see how this all shakes out.

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 12:00 am

Right now I am really enjoying my 360 and will probably also pickup wii as the family console.

PS3 just doesn't offer me anything different that 360 has to offer. Basically they are the same system but 360 has a year head start.

At best buy today, I got to see a PS3 game other than madden 07. It was some Motocross Biking game and what I was surprised to see was jaggies (yuck)! Why doesn't Sony ever put anti-asailing(sp?) in their systems? Do they have it on ps3? Maybe it could have been the hdtv hookup but I doubt it. I know it's probably not the best game to feature a new system so I am not gonna put PS3 down on just this game.

But for this year, 360 and wii are the 2 consoles for me. Maybe during year 2 of ps3, we'll see more games using it's power. Sort of like we are starting to see now for 360.

tjung0831 · Post by **tjung0831** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 12:28 am

I've been playing the 360 pretty much nonstop this weekend. I love GOW...phenominal game...best game I've ever played. College Hoops 2k7 is already my favorites sports video game of all time. I'm even warming up to NHL 07.
I've got two more weeks of work left and then i'm off until Jan 8th. There will be a lot of gaming time coming up.

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 12:40 am

tjung0831 wrote:I've been playing the 360 pretty much nonstop this weekend. I love GOW...phenominal game...best game I've ever played. College Hoops 2k7 is already my favorites sports video game of all time. I'm even warming up to NHL 07.
I've got two more weeks of work left and then i'm off until Jan 8th. There will be a lot of gaming time coming up.

For a new 360 owner, what are your must 360 games to play? I'm trying to catch up.

tjung0831 · Post by **tjung0831** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 10:34 am

Inuyasha wrote:
tjung0831 wrote:I've been playing the 360 pretty much nonstop this weekend. I love GOW...phenominal game...best game I've ever played. College Hoops 2k7 is already my favorites sports video game of all time. I'm even warming up to NHL 07.
I've got two more weeks of work left and then i'm off until Jan 8th. There will be a lot of gaming time coming up.

For a new 360 owner, what are your must 360 games to play? I'm trying to catch up.

Gears of War and College Hoops are must plays. I also bought Tiger Woods 07, NHL 07, and Need For Speed Carbon. Tiger and NHL are getting the least playing time out of the three. The other three games are good but it's hard for them to get playing time right now over GOW and CH07.

LAking · Post by **LAking** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 3:29 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
tjung0831 wrote:I've been playing the 360 pretty much nonstop this weekend. I love GOW...phenominal game...best game I've ever played. College Hoops 2k7 is already my favorites sports video game of all time. I'm even warming up to NHL 07.
I've got two more weeks of work left and then i'm off until Jan 8th. There will be a lot of gaming time coming up.

For a new 360 owner, what are your must 360 games to play? I'm trying to catch up.

Naturally i'm going to recommend GOW like everyone else but i'm also gonna say Dead Rising. Loads of fun. You should definitely download the demo. I've played NCAA 07 more than any other game, which is very surprising since i'm hardly a football fan. Maybe a more hardcore football fan might find flaws that i wouldn't but i think it says a lot that i've played a football game this much.

Murph · Post by **Murph** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 3:44 pm

I'd also like to recommend Saints Row. It's a blatant GTA ripoff, but it actually does some things better.

LAking · Post by **LAking** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:08 pm

Here's some interesting console related news.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5087

Apparently it's not too difficult to rip an image of ps3 games to the hard drive. It doesn't seem like they are able to run the games from the HD yet but it's only a matter of time. Sony's losing $300 on each console sold and it seems like it may be fairly easy to play pirated games. Not good news for Sony. I'll give sony some credit, they seem to be embracing the modding community, unlike MS.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:31 pm

LAking wrote:Here's some interesting console related news.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5087

Apparently it's not too difficult to rip an image of ps3 games to the hard drive. It doesn't seem like they are able to run the games from the HD yet but it's only a matter of time. Sony's losing $300 on each console sold and it seems like it may be fairly easy to play pirated games. Not good news for Sony. I'll give sony some credit, they seem to be embracing the modding community, unlike MS.

There's no way Sony will embrace the mod community. Sony will continue to release new firmware versions and hackers will have to hack it just like the PSP. If does not force firmware upgrades for new games then I'll say they're embracing the mod community.

LAking · Post by **LAking** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 9:35 pm

ScoopBrady wrote:
LAking wrote:Here's some interesting console related news.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5087

Apparently it's not too difficult to rip an image of ps3 games to the hard drive. It doesn't seem like they are able to run the games from the HD yet but it's only a matter of time. Sony's losing $300 on each console sold and it seems like it may be fairly easy to play pirated games. Not good news for Sony. I'll give sony some credit, they seem to be embracing the modding community, unlike MS.
There's no way Sony will embrace the mod community. Sony will continue to release new firmware versions and hackers will have to hack it just like the PSP. If does not force firmware upgrades for new games then I'll say they're embracing the mod community.

Well, "embrace" is probably too strong a word. What i mean it's nice that they allow users to upgrade the hard drive and include a bootloader for linux. That's a welcome change from microsoft so far.

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 11:53 pm

R. Bach's interview: Get your magnifying glasses first.

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/1 ... _wi_1.html

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 1:33 am

10spro wrote:R. Bach's interview: Get your magnifying glasses first.

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/1 ... _wi_1.html

Or get a better monitor.

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:44 pm

Anyone have any impressions or links to impressions/reviews for the PS3's Blu-Ray player quality?

Kazuya · Post by **Kazuya** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:58 pm

Spooky wrote:Anyone have any impressions or links to impressions/reviews for the PS3's Blu-Ray player quality?

GAH! I posted this before, but it took me five minutes to find it thanks to these types of forums limited search capabilities... you owe me 1/12th of my hourly rate...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,12789 ... ticle.html

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:29 pm

Kazuya wrote:
Spooky wrote:Anyone have any impressions or links to impressions/reviews for the PS3's Blu-Ray player quality?
GAH! I posted this before, but it took me five minutes to find it thanks to these types of forums limited search capabilities... you owe me 1/12th of my hourly rate...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,12789 ... ticle.html

Very interesting. Thanks Kaz!

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 11:13 am

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hd-dvd ... ayers.html

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 12:12 pm

Good reviews, guys, and thanks for the links.

I am eating a little crow after reading the very positive reviews of the PS3 movie experience. I didn't think Sony could deliver a solid Blu-Ray player for hundreds less without compromising the audio or video quality, and it seems like they really delivered. I'm not about to pay $500-600 for a PS3 or a Blu-Ray player now, but if the price drops and/or the HD format wars get decided in favor of Blu-Ray, I'd have to consider it.

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:02 pm

Got to spend some time with the PS3 last night. We got a kiosk in our store and it was slow so I played around a bit.

I walked away less than impressed unfortunately.

I understand this is the first round of titles but I really don't think anything I was able to demo was better than even the early 360 games. Am I missing something? There seems to be some rather concerning issues that I am surprised are not being brought up more often. First off, there seems to be some significant framerate issues with a lot of the games (especially EA ones). I even noticed it in Resistance.

Also, their lack of anti-aliasing I guess that what it is) is extremely noticeable and bothersome to my eye. It looks almost as if the dreaded "jaggies" are back. Everything that has a curve to it has this jagged edge and it is very distracting.

Guys, please don't think I am bashing Sony or the PS3 (trust me, I am close to buying one myself - mainly for the Blu-Ray player and then knowing I'll eventually get one for the games anyway). But I am not impressed at all with their debut and their launch titles.

It's so funny because the kiosk we got is the same one that is at Best Buys (with the 23" Sony LCD monitor) and that thing is set up so freakin' 'hot' (meaning over-saturated and vivid). To my eye it makes the flaws standout even more. I immediately adjusted our display to 'normal' viewing settings and it helped a bit.

We did a little marketing research last night as well to see the general publics response to the kiosk and the PS3. We left the set on vivid mode (completely over saturated and over sharp) and then paused a replay of the NBA game to one of the more horrendous looking player models and watched peoples responses. Quite a few came in, took a look at it and proceeded to exclaim how awesome the graphics were. Thats the power of the PS3 marketing for you. All this 1080p and "True HD" jargon. Do me a favor and next time your at a PS3 kiosk, take a close look at the TV setup and the NBA player models. Not pretty (but it sure is colorful).

We Tjung'd a few games and I wanted to be impressed or excited, I really did, but I was left feeling quite "blah". Still thinking of picking one up for the Blu-Ray though (it helps that my main DVD player is on the fritz to justify taking the plunge).

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:14 pm

There are no jaggies in X360 games? If you go to other forums, there are constant complaints about the lack of anistotropic filtering.

Most games, including Gears of War, are said to be using less than 720p resolutions (1280x720) which was suppose to be the minimum standard with 2xAA.

There was a video comparison done at 1UP comparing X360 and PS3 games side by side. I haven't looked at it but most people called it a wash, with some PS3 games looking better and vice versa.

One guy said FN3 looked better on the PS3 while Madden looked better on the X360.

Go figure.

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:27 pm

wco81 wrote:There are no jaggies in X360 games? If you go to other forums, there are constant complaints about the lack of anistotropic filtering.

Most games, including Gears of War, are said to be using less than 720p resolutions (1280x720) which was suppose to be the minimum standard with 2xAA.

There was a video comparison done at 1UP comparing X360 and PS3 games side by side. I haven't looked at it but most people called it a wash, with some PS3 games looking better and vice versa.

One guy said FN3 looked better on the PS3 while Madden looked better on the X360.

Go figure.

Interesting. I am sure there are jagged angles in many instances for 360 games, but I swear it seemed like anything curved on most all PS3 games we tested had these jagged lines that were somewhat distracting.

I certainly don't care about statistical data if a game just flat out looks nice like GoW. That thing could be using any resolution for all I care, it looks way better than most anything else out there. I am absolutely certain that the PS3 can produce the same type of graphics, I have no doubt there, but I did not think they'd have nearly as far to go to get there as it looks like they do now.

Boltman · Post by **Boltman** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:35 pm

Murph wrote:I'd also like to recommend Saints Row. It's a blatant GTA ripoff, but it actually does some things better.

In my eyes it does everything better. It's like they looked at GTA SA, noted everything that was wrong with it and fixed it. It has a ton of replayability. Just a bit crazy on the violence and potty mouth if you are worried about that sort of thing.

As for the 360 suggestions, College Hoops, GOW, GRAW, Marvel UA are the ones that make alot of tray time.

Lego Star Wars is awesome as well.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 1:44 pm

Didn't want to start a new thread but this is an interesting interview from the guys making Motorstorm.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=21581

Rally racing is a niche even in Europe and these guys want to break into the American market bad so they're aiming for more broad kind of racing.

On Youtube there are some videos and they seem to feature the crashes a lot, especially bike riders being tossed in the air. I guess that's aimed at appealing more broadly, because they want to be considered an AAA title period, not just a racing AAA title.

But interesting comment that racing games had to be physics driven, that there was some kind of market expectation for that.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:35 pm

wco81 wrote:Rally racing is a niche even in Europe and these guys want to break into the American market bad so they're aiming for more broad kind of racing.

Rallying is not a niche motorsport in Europe. The WRC is the second-most popular form of motorsport across Europe in terms of TV ratings, well behind F1.

Take care,
PK

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:43 pm

Maybe he meant rally racing games.

As he says in the interview, he was watching a rally race and realized it's just not broadly appealing enough to sell games based on it, especially in America.

EZSnappin · Post by **EZSnappin** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:08 pm

pk500 wrote:Rallying is not a niche motorsport in Europe. The WRC is the second-most popular form of motorsport across Europe in terms of TV ratings, well behind F1.

Take care,
PK

Source? I take your word on it, but I have no idea what that means in terms of numbers. IRL is probably second to Nascar in the States but as you well know that doesn't make open wheel racing any less a "niche" sport here (Indy 500 excluded, the tradition makes it a singular event).

And the key in the quote is "niche sport" - it may not be a small audience of overall motorsports fans, but F1 & Nascar are the only non-niche motorsports in the world.