Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have great visions for their consoles, they all strive to stand out from their competitors. Nintendo’s key initiative is to get non-gamers on board and provide the world with something a little different while Microsoft’s concept is to get a 360 into the hands of all gamers and build a huge community. Sony’s selling point? Graphics.
When it comes to standing out amongst the other consoles, Sony cannot compete with the Wii‘s quirky cuteness and Xbox 360‘s one-year lead on sales, games and overall functionality. They were late to the game because of technological advances in Blu-Ray and overall graphic horsepower. They’re providing a console that will still look “teh awesomes” ten years down the road, similar to the attack plan of the PS2 product which still sells today.
Sony’s Scott Steinberg, Vice President of Product Marketing for SCEA had nothing but great things to say about the console he’s marketing…
“I think that we’re seeing, graphically, PS3 games starting to create some distance and some of the other competitors are going to feel that they’re getting long in the tooth, looking quite dated, because they haven’t created that ten-year vision from a horsepower standpoint” (psu.com)
Really? Does anyone look at the Xbox 360 and say “this thing looks dated.” Each new title release continues to look more advanced and more graphically appealing than the last. Sure, Resistance 2 looked graphically epic, but the title isn’t on the shelves yet. As a matter of fact, very few PS3 titles are on the shelves when it comes to graphically appealing titles everyone wants.
As Nintendo has proven, it’s not always about the advanced graphics but the fun value and access to many titles across many genre’s of gaming. We’re happy about a nice 10-year vision but there is a reason classic games like Pac-Man, Missile Command and Galaga are still talked about and played by gamers: simple and fun.
Microsoft may not have a ten year vision, this is true, but I’d rather have a hot console I can play for the next six years than own a more expensive console with few games until its third year of life. The PlayStation 3 has been beating the Xbox 360 sales in 2008, is this too surprising given the fact that the Xbox 360 was out a year ahead? Sales aren’t always going to be rosy and over the top (unless it’s the Wii).
Rather than concentrate on how many more consoles the PS3 has sold compared to the 360, look at how many Wii consoles have sold to the graphically superior PS3. Perhaps Sony should speak less to the gamers about how awesome their console is and speak more to the developers so we can get titles worth buying for the console. Gamers only win when a console has games for them to play.
You missed a MAJOR part of Archon. The squares are white or black, and some cycle from light to dark. If you’re playing light, your unit becomes more powerful on light squares, and if you’re playing dark, the reverse is true. The point of the game was to capture all the power squares, most of which were cycling between light and dark.
Archon was super-addictive, especially against friends. It was there with MULE as a staple for most machines.
PS. The sorceress isn’t evil, she’s the dark, the night.
Lolz i like Chess, me and my friend daniel had games that went for like 3 lunch breaks back @ skw =p
It’s been a few weeks since I have replied to the QoTW due to moving house and then a change of ISP (finally I’m paying less than £40 a month for 8Mb/s broadband!).
Over the last two or three days I have downloaded and listened to 5 weeks worth of your podcasts and enjoyed all of them immensely, as per usual.
On to the question of the week; any, and all, of the Halo games.I have played the original three games but not ODST and the /abomination/ that is Halo Wars (Real Time Strategy should never, I repeat; NEVER be ported to consoles). I have never felt the need to replay any of the Halo games because, apart from the feeling of ‘meh’ that they make you feel after playing, they did something I hate… They released the first game on the PC with a decent port, but then the Halo 2 port to the PC was, and I’m being as kind as I can here, totally diabolical. First of all, you needed Vista… Need I say more?
Halo 3 was pretty good… But entirely predictable and again left me with a feeling of ‘meh’. I am the only true PC Gamer in a fairly large group of Xbox 360 owners… And they don’t understand my pain! I tried to show them how FPS’s /should/ be played in terms of Multiplayer (i.e. in a 32 player server with some decent admins) but they still do not see the light!
The only other games that I have played and then decided never to play again are usually games that I just hate, like the new Wolfenstein game (awful awful game) and… Well Mario Galaxy was terrible as well. Other than that I cannot think of anything else!
Cheers, and peace 🙂
In regaurds to the question of the week.
i would not want AC2 cuz i preordered the special edition of the game in September. i would want an alienware gaming laptop =]