"Sony unveils PlayStation 3"

[Sharessa]

In the end, the benefits of buying a new computer outweigh the benefits of buying a new console for me. Most importantly, none of the games I like to play ever come out for console: Civ3 and other Sid Meier games; Fallout, BG and other such RPGS; Heroes of Might and Magic; Stars!; etc. Only games I like that are pretty much exclusive to consoles are the GTA games, but they eventualy come out for the PC anyway.

Of course, it's not like anyone ever makes these games for PC either anymore*, but oh well. :/


* Actualy, the first Civ4 screenshots were released yesterday. Though I'm interested in all the gameplay changed they made, I'm seriously dissapointed in the graphics. Everything is ZOMG 3D 360 GAMEPLY!!!11 and the units are unrealisticly huge in comparison to everything else.

[Mogul]

Scuba Steve said:

Q: How much of this is just blowing smoke up my ass?

A: Most of it.

Fine. If you'd rather have it in terms that don't involve numbers or whatever it is that you're trying to put in a negative light -- it's much more powerful than anything else out there, and that's a good thing. :) It runs stuff so powerfully that PCs won't be able to match it for probably a couple of years. That a console has completely eclipsed the PC for once, is really exciting to me. The games are so beautiful it's ridiculous.

[Scuba Steve]

I call bullshit and smoke and mirrors because every 5 years I hear the same posturing and console "penis bragging".

5 years ago the PS2 was going to revolutionize gaming and render toy story graphics in realtime. It didn't. And now they're feeding me the same garbage to promote their product they did 5 years ago except this time saying "We mean it, seriously trust us theis time".

I don't buy, and this goes for all manufacturers. They're all full of garbage and I'll wait a year after release to see if their claims hold any water.

[Snarboo]

Mogul, you do realize that any "games" they show for a new console at this point are nothing more than a tech demo? I doubt the PS3 could run even an Unreal 3 tech game in real time at a reasonable FPS without cutting some corners. Everything you see now is just hype or a movie, not actual gameplay.

[Sharessa]

Yeah, it seems they try to decieve you or flat out lie in the gaming industry all the time. Like Half-Life 2 was supposed to have that realstic water-monster that they had in their pre-rendered video but it was mysteriously absent from the game. And a lot of times I see lies on expansion packs like "contains 8 new races" or something when there are actualy only 2, and only 8 if you include the original 6. Then there was Doom 3 which got stripped down a lot when they realised no one could possibly play their game with the current average technology.

[Bucket]

If you're talking about HL2's Hydra, that was taken out because it wasn't any fun to play; it would "float around a bit looking pretty, then impale you". Things aren't taken out of games only because of some deception involved with abilities of the engine that didn't pan out.

And if you're wondering about which demos were simply for show-- one dead giveaway is fluid camera motion.

[NiGHTMARE]

I'm afraid both sides of this thread's PS3 specs argument are wrong. On the one hand, no way will it be better than the current top level PC (of course, it will certainly be a heck of a lot cheaper); on the other, it will be more than powerful enough to run Unreal 3 engine games.

PS3 specs:

* PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
* 1 VMX vector unit per core
* 512KB L2 cache
* 7 x SPE @3.2GHz
* 7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
* 7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
* total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

[darknation]

what worries me is that the technology moves so far these days, games companies can't keep up... I mean, to make an entire game of photo realistic levels, models, textures, animation... it's going to take YEARS. The industry is fucking itself in the ass as it is.

Games are become bland and repetative in both style and gameplay because no one will take any risks when the pricetag in in the millions. It smells like holywood.

[TheDarkArchon]

mallis said:

It smells like holywood.

Holywood wouldn'tbe the way I'd put it...

[Quast]

mallis said:

It smells like holywood.

Makes more money then hollywood too

[Relica Religia]

I think console games will be obsolete in the near future. As they get more and more advanced, they start to act and work more similarly to computers, until eventually they'll be nothing more than excessively limited-in-usefulness PCs.

Hackers already have no trouble porting video games to play on computer emulators, even from systems like PS2 and XBOX. The video game industry's success will always be circumvented by the computer gaming world.

[NiGHTMARE]

Relica Religia said:

I think console games will be obsolete in the near future. As they get more and more advanced, they start to act and work more similarly to computers, until eventually they'll be nothing more than excessively limited-in-usefulness PCs.

Hackers already have no trouble porting video games to play on computer emulators, even from systems like PS2 and XBOX. The video game industry's success will always be circumvented by the computer gaming world.

I remember a friend of mine once saying almost exactly what you just said. That was over a decade ago.

[Mogul]

Whether or not they can render Toy Story in real time or not doesn't concern me. The point is, it's a gigantic leap in terms of quality.

Bringing up the PS2, I remember when Metal Gear Solid 2 premiered and there was debate all over the forums about whether it was prerendered or not. And the truth is, it wasn't. It did look that good (at the time, muwaha). And it was an absolute magnum upgrade over MGS for the first PS. But, the difference between the the PS2 and PS3 is even greater. It looks fantastic. Some of the presentations are straight up tech demos, and some are not. But as it's been said, the system's sheer specs are way more than enough to destroy any current game's demands, whether you see it in action or not. (and UT2007 running on PS3 is impossibly great... amazing)

Besides, bringing up the 360, we've been seeing pictures and videos of Gears of War for about a year now. We know it's that good. And the 360's hardware is more than powerful enough to run it amazingly well.

That's extremely exciting to me. For instance, it has video technology based off of ATi's next gen, past the X800 and all of that. Not to mention the processor, all the wireless stuff, etc. I mean, really, that ATi graphics card will cost $100 more at its launch for PC than the Xbox 360 will altogether at its launch.

Man, this stuff excites me! A lot!

[Scuba Steve]

Are you a Sony representative or something?

[spank]

Do you realize how many tasks current desktop processors have to manage in every day usage? It's an even greater burden when you play games because PCs have to be seriously overpowered to be able to cope with nowadays' multitasking operating systems and the applications that run on top of them; even moreso with technologies like hyper-threading. Dual core CPUs kinda are a brute force solution to this.

If a game like, say, Doom 3 could be booted from the BIOS (hardware support implications aside), ie. be the only process in execution at a given time, my guess is that any 1+ GHz CPU could handle it perfectly. With graphical optimizations, you would have the stripped down version that the XBox handles. Remember that the XBox has a 733MHz Pentium 3, nothing state-of-the-art even when it came out, and that the operating systems that run on consoles are as slim as possible (you won't be running anything else apart from the game on them).

Now get a 3.2GHz RISC CPU solely to run games and imagine the enormous power reserve for them. I'm even disregarding their GPUs, which are pretty fucking powerful themselves. Face it, consoles will always be better platforms for gaming (that's not to say that PCs don't win, though, because they do. Free development and open systems rule.)

I'm pretty excited to see what developers can come out with on the PS3 and the X360, since their specs are pretty close. I agree the PS3 might have an edge over the XBox (hail the mighty Cell processor) but it'll be a close call. And if I'm not mistaken, there aren't many architectural differences between the two (they're both PowerPC) so porting might not be such a complicated task.

[Snarboo]

Frankly, the Cell chip sounds like a disaster in waiting. SEVEN different processors working together?! Game developers already have trouble programming for a system with dual processors/chips, but SEVEN? Do you realize how long it might take to be able to finally have access to all that power? It just sounds like a headache for any serious game developer out there right now who wants access to all that power without having to optimize, work around, or even have to streamline everything and only use 3 or 4 of the processors because nobody knows how to program for the PS3.

Let's also not forget that it took YEARS for the quality of PS2 games to even reach where they are now, and the current generation isn't even compareable to modern PC games. I can just imagine how long it will take for the PS3 to be even at full power, all 7 processors chugging along. By then, we'll be running Unreal 4 tech, UT2010, and Quake 5 on PCs with maybe 30 fps!

[Fredrik]

Surely it's the compiler's job to parallelize the instructions.

[LorD BaZTArD]

HA! Ok, it's true but it's also bullshit. It's not so much as 7 Processors as one core doing 7 things at a time in comparison to the current 2 in PC's.

Basically, a standard PC can execute a script in say... 60 Seconds. A Hyperthreaded P4 will still take 60 seconds, it'll just do it more efficiently. A true Dual core like a PowerPC (powering all 3 nextgen consoles. Heh. Apple are laughing all the way to the bank and so is Little Bill with his 15% stake in apple. Ha :P) will also do the script in 60 seconds, but it'll output more in the same time. The Cell's 7 Processors? Imagine it does a Doom 3 texture in real time. A standard D3 texture has 5 stages(Don't quote me on that) Each processor can handle a stage independently and output it again in around 60 seconds but it'll look prettier as it can do each part to it's utmost potential instead of cutting corners. The other 2 can then probably handle how the ingame scene effects the texture and perhaps anything that changes on the fly, say it explodes.

With everything running at full speed you can draw nearly anything, remember how all PS2 GTA's had a pedestrian/Car limit on screen at all times? Kiss that good bye. Imagine a city like New York done on the PS3. The hundreds of people on the street doing their daily task? Easy. A warzone where something happening in the far distance isn't an animated skybox but actually happening in real time? Insane! Suddenly an area that used to play a scripted sequence and a pre-recorded wav sample becomes dynamic. You hear a soldier scream over the radio as his ship goes down? Look to the distance and see it happening. Sure it'll take alot of artwork to do shit like that but big companies can produce that work as well as assistance from shaders and procedural textures. Let the Console create the artwork, let the dev's create the framework and let the player get involved in an insane level. All 3 Consoles can do insane things, and while we won't see it immediately, we will see it.

You must remember that in the world of consoles the truly mind blowing stuff always come late in the lifespan, because by then the dev teams have got well and truly used to the mechanics of the console of choice and stretch it to the limit. GTA3 was nuts when it hit, San Andreas was the same console but something so phenomenally large it was insane. No-one would of expected the PS2 to do that in 2000. Same here, the games we see now look amazing, then the third/fourth gen games rock up. *BOOM* "Quit drooling asshole and join in"

UE3 looking that good on the Next Gen consoles, oh yeah baby that's not fake. No PC overhead just pure rendering. Tech always evolves fast and if you're only just noticing this now? You've been sleeping too much.

[Snarboo]

Isn't this what everybody was saying during the last next gen console war? That all these consoles with their superior hardware would open up the limits of game design and allow for a new level of interactivity and absolutely mind blowing games with huge levels and limitless possibilities? Guess what, it didn't happen then, and it won't happen now. No matter how much hype is thrown around, none of the consoles of this and future generations will ever live up to their full potential. I remember hearing about how the PS2 would improve or allow for more advanced AI and such, and there was supposedly a demo with birds flying around and acting together like a flock. Funny how you never hear about that anymore and how game AI is the same as it always has been.

I can predict that games will be as average to middling as they are now, only they'll have prettier graphics and maybe larger levels. The only thing that has been pushed forward during successive generations of consoles are how many polygons the system can process and put on screen at one time. In order for a game to have anywhere near the interactivity described in the post above, the graphic quality would have to be reduced to a playable level. There is no way you could have an entire battlefield type scenario or city running at about Doom 3's graphical detail throughout an entire level in real time, each area independant of each other with battles and situations springing up in each one. Just imagine how much data would have to be processed alongside the graphics and what's on the screen, let alone areas you can't even see or interact with. Not even 7 processor cores could do it, especially if 5 of them are tied up with the graphics on screen. Even if you could have a level of detail that immense in a level the size of a city, the entire "world" would have to be chopped up into smaller units. Funny, that's exactly how things are now.

Face it, console games will always have to be optimized, corners will be cut, and games will still be as they are now, only prettier.

[NiGHTMARE]

If you honestly think the PS2 can't handle larger levels and better AI than the PS1, you can't have played many games on at least one of the systems.

[Sharessa]

I think the point he (and others) are making is that Sony didn't deliver on their promises last time, so how can we trust that they won't do the same thing this time around?

[NiGHTMARE]

No, he's saying the only thing that has and will improve from one console generation to the next is graphics.

Which, to put it bluntly, is utter BS.

[Relica Religia]

I like DOS. Bring back DOS.

[MikeyScoots]

Well I was looking on Eb's site about the next gen consoles and the games they'll represent:

Ps3
Devil May Cry 4
Gran turismo 5
Tekken 6
Metal Gear solid 4

Xbox 360
Tony Hawks American Wasteland
Halo 3
Quake 4
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Prey
True Crime 2

I already know I'm gonna end up getting all three systems sooner or later, but I think even though the Revolution allows classic downloading, unless they stop making kiddie games they're gonna be in one heck of a mess.

[Dr. Zin]

Despite all of the huge levels, insane graphics, and theatrics, there really hasn't been a new game I've wanted to play in years. All of this increased tech just hides the fact that the gaming world is stagnant.

[Sharessa]

NiGHTMARE said:

No, he's saying the only thing that has and will improve from one console generation to the next is graphics.

Which, to put it bluntly, is utter BS.

If anything, the whole gaming industry (PC companies included) have been including less and less gameplay with their games over the years. I haven't seen any games in the last 5 years that actualy exploit the technology besides making the graphics more "realistic" or shiny.

Relica Religia said:

I like DOS. Bring back DOS.

Hear hear.

I would gladly give you Tuesday for a DOS machine today.

[Fredrik]

NiGHTMARE said:

No, he's saying the only thing that has and will improve from one console generation to the next is graphics.

Which, to put it bluntly, is utter BS.

Shittyness improves too.

Games were best ~1990-1998.

[Snarboo]

Keep in mind that I'm not saying you can't look forward to the next generation of games, I certainly am, nor did I say that there might not be some interesting titles that push the limits. I know for certain that graphics in games will be better, load times will probably be faster, and levels will be larger, which is all very rewarding. However, I doubt any of these consoles will usher in a gaming revolution. In order for games to be revolutionary, you need developers and publishers willing to take risks with the medium and push the envelope. As it stands right now, there are few, if any publishers like that, so I can expect to see Madden 20XX and Popular Franchise the Sequal type games for the near future.

Let's also not forget that the definition of revolution is a subjective one. Technically, game technology today is revolutionary, especially considering that just 10 years ago, we were playing 2D games with maybe a few 3D ones that were not accelerated. However, have games become more revolutionary? Not really. I think a lot of what made games more interesting years ago is that the technology was new back then. Companies had to take risks with the medium, especially since advanced 2D graphics were so new, people had to figure out how to use them, and how to design games around them that exploited the technology. Sure, there were average games back then, but there were just as many oddball, quirky games out there along with games that we would today call "broken" from bugs, but were absolutely great back then. Let's also not forget that videogames were a newer market 10 years ago and it wasn't the multimillion dollar industry it is today.

However, as graphics have improved and game design has become more standard and known and documented, game design has hit a slump. Nothing is really new anymore, there is really no new envelope to push. Since game design is a multimillion, even billion dollar industry, and anything that isn't an instant success is ignored or forgotten about, taking chances is very risky(for big businesses), even though we haven't really exploited the technology we have now to it's full potential. We've been stuck with 3D graphics for gaming purposes around 9 years now(I'm starting with Quake, so you know), and since then, the only thing that has been advanced is the hardware to render those graphics. Have we really seen games that were revolutionary graphically speaking since then? Not really. Sure, we can have games with advanced normal and bump mapping that are playable in real time, but I've played games with bump mapping that are atleast 5 years old.

What will it take to make game design revolutionary again? Simple, either a new format and way to make games, which outside of some radical hardware or graphics systems(voxels?, spheroids?) might not happen for a LONG time,
or someone figures out how to push the hardware and game design we have now in ways we can't imagine. However, pushing the limits of hardware, graphics, and game design is again taking chances, something the industry doesn't want to do. However, just because we've hit a slump doesn't mean it will be this way forever. I just don't foresee a revolution overnight, which is what most next gen consoles hypers are foretelling. I think once the industry starts asking itself, "What is a game? What makes a game good? Can a game be something more than moving a character around a 3D world?", we'll start seeing better games.

[Sharessa]

Fredrik said:

Games were best ~1990-1998.

Very much agreed. I'd say probably all but one of my top 10 favorite games were made in that time range.

[DaJuice]

Two things (with no particular bearing on what's been said in this thread):


1) Killzone2 video is not real-time.

2) The PS3 controller shown looks sort of like a reshaped, wireless DualShock2, which in my book is a good thing.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v123/DaJuice/controller_overlay.jpg