The Sony PS3 thread (apparently *still* obnoxious!)

Duck Turkin · Post by **Duck Turkin** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 9:21 pm 0

Old_but_still_a_kid wrote:Untold Legends:Dark Kingdoms trailer from Gametrailers.com

mov file download here

wmv file download here

Hmmm, finally gauntlet style goodness in polygon era? Looks very tasty.
IF..Gauntlet like gameplay+those graphics = DEFINATE SALE!

If it's a silly RPG wannabe I shall procede to go stab the developers through teh faces!!

*grabs everyone by the collar and shouts "Gauntlet!!!!!!!!!"* can you tell I love Gauntlet?

If it's anything like the PSP versions, and it does appear similar, it will be a 'sort-of' Gauntlet clone with RPG elements. I'm not sure how much you'd like that

.

Kronos · Post by **Kronos** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 9:26 pm 0

Gauntlet has minimal RPG elements really, health food potions etc...anymore than basic that interrupts the mind numbing hack and slashing of monsters and makes me think is bad though

Yak · Post by **Yak** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 12:20 pm 0

Interesting bit from the blog of someone on my friends list on LJ who lives in Tokyo:

It doesn't really feel like the PS3 is coming out this Saturday. There hasn't been a bombardment of TV ads until today; there wasn't a demo unit in Akihabara when I went on Saturday (it turns out they all got installed yesterday); and there's still no price info about the games that we can download from the PlayStation store. But it's still happening, apparently.

It's such a paper launch, if ever there was one. It's way worse than the PSP launch, esp. in terms of games that will be available. To tell the truth, I'm starting to have major second thoughts about this. At Japanese launch, the only game I'm interested in is Ridge Racer 7. There have been recent videos of this showing courses exactly ripped out of Ridge Racer 6. I know there's some new courses, and there's crap loads of good new music. Plus the customization looks cool, but it still feels cheap when they recycle such recent content. And that's it. I would have got Motorstorm, perhaps, if they were putting online in the Japanese release, but it seems they can't be bothered and are rushing it out to pad out the sketchy release schedule. So it's effectively going to be a Ridge Racer machine for a couple of months at least. Super lame. If I can get decent money for it, I'm seriously considering that route.

But another thing that's been bothering me -- what does the general public think about the PS3? I've read retailer blogs where they say that customers are actually asking "What's the difference between PS2 and PS3?". Apart from Blu-ray, which consumers don't give a crap about, and HDTV, there isn't a great deal. HD is one of those things that's especially hard to notice unless you're standing right in front of the display TVs too. No stores are gonna have 50" screens showing off true 1080p. Most just have 720P ~21" displays, which don't do the graphics justice, of course. And that's a big hurdle that Sony will have ahead of them. In fact, I'm not even sure if consumers actually want HDTVs. Certainly, there is a lot of force to buy new digital sets, thanks to them phasing out analogue broadcasts, and nearly every digital set you see in stores is, you guessed it, HD. A very useful coincidence for making an argument about HD's penetration.

aureole · Post by **aureole** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 12:27 pm 0

HDTV is a sticky issue with next-gen stuff at the moment: the XBox360 and PS3 aren't much of an upgrade without them, but most people don't own them. There's hardly any HD-TV broadcast in the UK and no HD DVD either, so it's making the upgrade cost of a next-gen console really expensive.

Nestle · Post by **Nestle** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:10 pm 0

I will buy PS3 and GT5 as soon as they are available at this cold corner of the world.

Wii seems great too, but all my friends are buying that, so I am not interested - they can carry it over.

When other people were buying PS2, XBOX and PSPs I went and bought Gamecube and Dreamcast.

It is a hard job but someone has to do it

Nestle

aureole · Post by **aureole** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 2:01 pm 0

Nestle wrote:I will buy PS3 and GT5 as soon as they are available at this cold corner of the world.

My experience of playing it was massively underwhelming. Or at least, I found it as dull as every other GT game and it wasn't much better looking at all either

.

Yak · Post by **Yak** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 2:06 pm 0

Yeah I played it at e3 and someone asked me "is it what you were expecting" and I said "Well, yeah"... IIRC this was reported somewhere as an endorsement but actually what I'd meant was "yeah, it looks like GT4 with slightly higher rez graphics".

I did like the bit where you could do races in old Model T Fords though. But it didn't have me drooling at the gash for a ps3.

aureole · Post by **aureole** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 2:30 pm 0

Yak wrote:Yeah I played it at e3 and someone asked me "is it what you were expecting" and I said "Well, yeah"... IIRC this was reported somewhere as an endorsement but actually what I'd meant was "yeah, it looks like GT4 with slightly higher rez graphics".

I did like the bit where you could do races in old Model T Fords though. But it didn't have me drooling at the gash for a ps3.

I'm sure there are better looking things on the PS3 for the launch lineup, but playing that and Devil May Cry really was a case of having high-rez PS2 games. Luckily I've got faith that (as is usual for the Playstation consoles) we'll see a steady climb in graphical niceness over the lifecycle of the console.

Atty · Post by **Atty** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 2:54 pm 0

Yak wrote:Interesting bit from the blog of someone on my friends list on LJ who lives in Tokyo:

It doesn't really feel like the PS3 is coming out this Saturday. There hasn't been a bombardment of TV ads until today; there wasn't a demo unit in Akihabara when I went on Saturday (it turns out they all got installed yesterday); and there's still no price info about the games that we can download from the PlayStation store. But it's still happening, apparently.

It's such a paper launch, if ever there was one. It's way worse than the PSP launch, esp. in terms of games that will be available. To tell the truth, I'm starting to have major second thoughts about this. At Japanese launch, the only game I'm interested in is Ridge Racer 7. There have been recent videos of this showing courses exactly ripped out of Ridge Racer 6. I know there's some new courses, and there's crap loads of good new music. Plus the customization looks cool, but it still feels cheap when they recycle such recent content. And that's it. I would have got Motorstorm, perhaps, if they were putting online in the Japanese release, but it seems they can't be bothered and are rushing it out to pad out the sketchy release schedule. So it's effectively going to be a Ridge Racer machine for a couple of months at least. Super lame. If I can get decent money for it, I'm seriously considering that route.

But another thing that's been bothering me -- what does the general public think about the PS3? I've read retailer blogs where they say that customers are actually asking "What's the difference between PS2 and PS3?". Apart from Blu-ray, which consumers don't give a crap about, and HDTV, there isn't a great deal. HD is one of those things that's especially hard to notice unless you're standing right in front of the display TVs too. No stores are gonna have 50" screens showing off true 1080p. Most just have 720P ~21" displays, which don't do the graphics justice, of course. And that's a big hurdle that Sony will have ahead of them. In fact, I'm not even sure if consumers actually want HDTVs. Certainly, there is a lot of force to buy new digital sets, thanks to them phasing out analogue broadcasts, and nearly every digital set you see in stores is, you guessed it, HD. A very useful coincidence for making an argument about HD's penetration.

By now it must be totally apparant to the various regional branches of Sony and retailers worldwide that they've completely fluffed the PS3's launch - Massive hardware shortages, enormously prohibitive pricing, a less than stellar launch lineup, an online service that isn't ready, delays until '07 in some territories, etc.
Almost everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

I just have this image of lots of sweaty, clench-buttocked Sony bods sitting around in their boardrooms, looking very nervous, avoiding each others eyes and secretly praying like the blazes that the Playstation brand name will be enough to pull them through.

Yak · Post by **Yak** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:07 pm 0

I think it's interesting that people are asking "what's the difference?"

Because if you don't have HD, what *is* the difference really? The games are maybe slightly shinier, but pretty much like more expensive ps2 games.

'Course the same might be said of the x360, but at least MS can point to their online stuff as being a major advance over the xbox. Ninty can point to online *and* the new controller.

Yes, true, there's the SIXAXIS but that's really just a shoehorning in of stuff to keep up with Ninty rather than a basic axion of the console like it is with Ninty.

It's all quite interesting to see how things work out over the next few months..

Mele · Post by **Mele** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:42 pm 0

I don't think I have ever seen a product that is going to be released that is so designed for future potential , yet at launch so inadequate.
In two years time maybe HDtv will be the norm and the holy grail of 1080p will be affordable , the online aspect of Sony will be consolidated and numerous upgrades to the OS like the psp will mean it could have amazing potential. The games will hopefully be in there 2nd/3rd generation showing amazing things of what sounds a very complex but powerful hardware.

All this will be great but the Christmas it will be rather crap if you have spent best part of Â£600 quid with recycled games rushed through.

To get an example of this at the weekend I went to the local Costco to look at getting a 1080p TV by taking my Panasonic back and spend some more cash, they had none in at all. Right next to the TVs was stacked about 20 samsung blu ray dvd players all proclaiming 1080p at a very bargain price of Â£780

How things would have been so different if Sony ditched the bluray and maybe released bluray like MS HDDVD as an optional add on. Then going head to head at the 360 launch .

Darkflame · Post by **Darkflame** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:44 pm 0

That would have been better.

I think the problem is also that the PS3 really isnt that much, if anything, more powerfull then the Xbox360. The public perception seems to be its going to be a quantom leap ahead of everything else. But thats simply not going to happen, and that goes double for people with normal tvs.

aureole · Post by **aureole** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:16 pm 0

Mele wrote: How things would have been so different if Sony ditched the bluray and maybe released bluray like MS HDDVD as an optional add on. Then going head to head at the 360 launch .

I think BluRay was absolutely the right decision though: except for Wii, the selling point for next-gen is the HD experience. Selling the whole thing in one go is the smart way to do it - Sony bet the farm on getting the whole lot under the telly. Last time round it was definately the smart thing to do (re: DVD playback).

I get the impression in the US there's a better provision of HD cable services which helps the HD uptake rate.

Orangy Tang · Post by **Orangy Tang** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:17 pm 0

Mele wrote: How things would have been so different if Sony ditched the bluray and maybe released bluray like MS HDDVD as an optional add on. Then going head to head at the 360 launch .

People are already complaining over the launch lineup - what would it have been like if the release was brought forward a year to match the 360?

Mele · Post by **Mele** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:25 pm 0

Orangy Tang wrote:
Mele wrote: How things would have been so different if Sony ditched the bluray and maybe released bluray like MS HDDVD as an optional add on. Then going head to head at the 360 launch .
People are already complaining over the launch lineup - what would it have been like if the release was brought forward a year to match the 360?

Isn't that down to Sony falling asleep at the wheel and obsession with creating brand new media formats ?

YakYak

The Sony PS3 thread (apparently still obnoxious!)