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

[Darkflame]

You probably don’t care about HD-DVD right now. But you will soon

No i wont.

The quality between DVD and HD is comparable to VHS vs DVD,

So, the difference between dvd and hddvd/bluray is a tiny visual quality difference, but a huge increase in durability?
right.

[Guru-Meditation]

The 360 has gone insane with its pretentions of being a PC and with the online rubbish...

Some of the "online rubbish" (XBLA, multiplayer) is the best thing about the machine.

Agreement here. You can't get more plug-in and play than picking up the controller, using that to turn on the machine, and having an assortment of games downloaded on your box ready to run. And when you're done you can use the controller to switch it all off. No cable tangling with other controllers/furniture/cats either.... sorry mate, but this consoles is as easy to use as any others I've had before. It just comes with an array of other nice things you don't have to use if you don't want to.

Now if only someone would make an XBLA version of Sensi Soccer ...

So, the difference between dvd and hddvd/bluray is a tiny visual quality difference, but a huge increase in durability?

Depends on how you look at it. If you're going from VHS/CRT to DVD/CRT to HD-DVD/LCD, then the statement is true. If you're going from VHS/CRT to DVD/LCD to HD-DVD/LCD then it's not as large a difference. There's still a fair difference (at least on my screen) between the Composite TV-Out on the X360 and HD 480p (not as fuzzy, less artifacts ...)

[Kemper_Boyd]

Hating sony with all my heart, id like to believe that.
But when someone says "I cant go into details" a few times, warning lights flash.

Yes he's glossing over an awful lot of different pros and cons for each
platform.

[Hajile]

The 360 has gone insane with its pretentions of being a PC and with the online rubbish, to the extent that downloading updates can break the machine

Eh? What pretensions are you thinking of? The PS3 is the console that planned to ship with Linux... will allow other operating systems.

I've yet to come across many (if any) 360 users complaining about the online "rubbish."

The fact that a large percentage of 360 games look like PC games in disguise is what I was referring to. The same could be said for the original Xbox, but that gave us some rather excellent console style games too, like Ninja Gaiden and Jet Set Radio Future. I've yet to see the 360 do anything truly 'consoley'.

And my opinions on online consoles are well known. I care not for online features in a console, for I have a computer, which will by its very nature be capable of doing it all so much better. It simply holds no appeal. I'm a video gaming misanthrope as well, and consider games to be a solitary experience for me to enjoy when noone else is around. When I played WoW, I spent most of my time soloing. So group play is not something I enjoy, and solo gaming was something I could enjoy more easily on consoles that didn't use their online capabilities as a principal selling point. It's my main bone of centention with the Wii too, aside from its controller - frivolous 'party games' don't appeal to the guy stood in the corner having a quiet in-depth one on one conversation with someone, while other people make all the noise.

Hajile~ Xbox Live rules and certainly in no way takes away from the consoles.
And the Wii's exclusives certainly arnt just mini games.
(Zelda, Metroid, Mario, to name the obvious)

and no controllers you have to be taught how to use

So you dont like any console made in the last 2 decades then?

I don't need to be taught how to use a pad. I never did - buttons the shape of arrows or a stick move me around, action buttons do things. What could be more obvious? (Lunging forward with my left hand and waggling my right around in a manner that resembles what's happening on screen no more accurately than pressing up on an analogue stick to move into the screen, apparently.)

I'm too happy with the way I use a pad to go mucking around with my standard gaming interface. I've tried other control methods over the last 20 years and for me, the pad is the most comfortable, instinctive way of playing by far. Plus it took a good few years for me to get away from the affliction of flightitis*, and now that I've learned to keep the controller still while playing, I'm supposed to start moving it again, just because? Nuts to that.

Oh, and Zelda isn't a Wii exclusive, Metriod is a sequel and therefore can technically be discounted, as can Tony Hawks, Madden, Monkey Ball, Farcry and Trauma Centre. Wii exlusives include Rayman, Wii Sports, Wii Play and Warioware. Oh look, subgames. The only truly Wii exclusive non-subgame games I've discovered that were built expressly for the Wii are Red Steel and Excite Truck, and they look bollocks.

--------------------------
* = The habit of tilting and turning the pad while playing, for example, driving and flying games, thinking that it gives you an advantage but instead makes you look like a pillock.

[fog]

I've yet to see the 360 do anything truly 'consoley'.

Define a console game then. Kameo, Dead Rising, Saints Row, Ridge Racer, Ninety Nine Nights, Burnout, Dead or Alive?

Oh, and Zelda isn't a Wii exclusive, Metriod is a sequel and therefore can technically be discounted, as can Tony Hawks, Madden, Monkey Ball, Farcry and Trauma Centre. Wii exlusives include Rayman, Wii Sports, Wii Play and Warioware. Oh look, subgames. The only truly Wii exclusive non-subgame games I've discovered that were built expressly for the Wii are Red Steel and Excite Truck, and they look bollocks.

I do think Nintendo get off quite lightly when it comes to releasing sequels and in many cases the exact same game over the years.

[Hajile]

I've yet to see the 360 do anything truly 'consoley'.

Define a console game then. Kameo, Dead Rising, Saints Row, Ridge Racer, Ninety Nine Nights, Burnout, Dead or Alive?

OK, slight exaggeration on my part. Let me rephrase - 'I've yet to see the 360 do anything 'consoley' in any substantial way.' 7 console-style games in about a year? There's probably more, but file under not enough.

Anyway, we were on about the PS3. Odd, the number of risks Sony seem to have taken with it, don't you think? They could have released the PS2 again with the 2 crossed out and a 3 written on it in permanent marker and it still would have hammered everything else, so why bother?

[grue]

Anyway, we were on about the PS3. Odd, the number of risks Sony seem to have taken with it, don't you think? They could have released the PS2 again with the 2 crossed out and a 3 written on it in permanent marker

Looks like they did.

[Anders]

I've yet to see the 360 do anything truly 'consoley'.

It plays videogames. I don't see how it can get more "consoley" than that.

[Deckard]

(looks up)

What was the thread title again ?

[gilesgoat]

I've yet to see the 360 do anything truly 'consoley'.

Define a console game then. Kameo, Dead Rising, Saints Row, Ridge Racer, Ninety Nine Nights, Burnout, Dead or Alive?

OK, slight exaggeration on my part. Let me rephrase - 'I've yet to see the 360 do anything 'consoley' in any substantial way.' 7 console-style games in about a year? There's probably more, but file under not enough.

*SNIP*

Well .. ... those "console-stye" games .. it's already a half-miracle to make
one of those games per year ...

Testing then is another mess ...

Yeah we all would like more games but .. they take so much time

[Hajile]

I've yet to see the 360 do anything truly 'consoley'.

It plays videogames. I don't see how it can get more "consoley" than that.

PC games are different to console games. Videogames are not the same as computer games. 360 games, more often than not, resemble computer games more closely than they resemble videogames. This is what I am getting at. It is a small difference, but it's an important one.

Incidentally, this tangent is built on one misunderstood sentence in my long ranting post, and I have since explained what I was actually getting at twice.

Are we back on track now?

[Roobarb]

So where does this fit in the Hajile definition of whataconsoleoughtabe?!

(courtesy of http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/)

[Flabio]

I have a computer, which will by its very nature be capable of doing it all so much better.

Well, if you're planning on playing games on Vista it's going to be doing it in exactly the same way as the 360. Right down to sharing user profiles.

[gilesgoat]

I've yet to see the 360 do anything truly 'consoley'.

It plays videogames. I don't see how it can get more "consoley" than that.

PC games are different to console games. Videogames are not the same as computer games. 360 games, more often than not, resemble computer games more closely than they resemble videogames. This is what I am getting at. It is a small difference, but it's an important one.

Incidentally, this tangent is built on one misunderstood sentence in my long ranting post, and I have since explained what I was actually getting at twice.

Are we back on track now?

.. ..

Well .. computers up to a certain generation had "by default" quite
crap graphic adapters and/or even if good one were available most
people were not arsed to buy them.

Then there were also too many differences and crap to support/grant
a certain "constant level of quality".

CPUs were also "not that much" for many people.

Now things are changed, it is technically possible to have same graphic
quality, CPUs are on average quite fast, people on the average have
quite some "pumped" PCs.

Yet .. still various troubles .. but technically with a decent PC and a
decent graphic card it should be still possible to make things look/feel
practically identical.

So techically is possible to make an 1:1 thing, of course now there's
one more difference all the "online community stuff" that PCs now miss.

But anyway, despite all this talking .. erm .. what are those "differences" ?

[Hajile]

Whee! I like explaining things!

So where does this fit in the Hajile definition of whataconsoleoughtabe?!

(courtesy of http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/)
http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/pics3/wii-glamour1.jpg
http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/pics3/wii-glamour2a.jpg

It's for girls. And kids. Not for big manly men like me.

Besides, shouldn't that be going in the Wii thread? I know I mentioned the Wii, but it was simply to back up my general frustration with all aspects of the new generation of consoles, not so people could turn the PS3 thread into another 'Wii is teh cool' thread.

Hmm, Maybe I should have posted that rant of mine in a new thread...

I have a computer, which will by its very nature be capable of doing it all so much better.

Well, if you're planning on playing games on Vista it's going to be doing it in exactly the same way as the 360. Right down to sharing user profiles.

Why would it? I don't do online games, remember?

But anyway, despite all this talking .. erm .. what are those "differences" ?

Okay, maybe I should go into a bit more detail about what I'm getting at there. I'm not referring to graphical sophistication or anything like that. It's much less technical, and has to do with how the games feel, and how they make you feel.

Generally, computer games are larger, more complex, freeroaming affairs with the empahsis placed on the player making the immersion and interaction happen him or herself. The player is placed in the game, and how far he or she delves into that game is entirely up to them. The game teases the player with a large canvas, and the ability to roam in it, but as there is so much content, it occasionally feels cold. The player is god, and the games have a more sophisticated, cerebral feel. Example - Half Life 2.

Alternatively, videogames have a narrower field of vision, or perception. They are more linear experiences, simpler even, though no less worthy because of it, and the immersion is thrust upon the player, through more emotive, less clinical techniques, forcing them to accept the game as it is, not for what it might be. The player is placed in the game, and its scope and size is there to see. It doesn't try to conjur images beyond the scope of the game in the way a computer game does, but it doesn't have to, as because there is less content, more time and effort has gone into making that content evocative. The game is god, and they tend to have a more cinematic, visceral feel. Example - Zelda.

Cases in point - Deus Ex (Computer game) versus Deus Ex - Invisible War (videogame), Thief (computer game) versus Tenchu (videogame) or Baldur's Gate (computer game) versus Final Fantasy VII (videogame).

There are, as always, exceptions, and computer game-style games have appeared on consoles, and videogames have appeared on PC. But it remains obvious where the game is supposed to be played. To use a recent example of my gamesplaying - Beyond Good & Evil. I've played it on PC and PS2, and I feel much more comfortable playing it on PS2. Why? Because it's obviously a videogame, not a computer game.

This is what I was getting at - a great deal of 360 games simply feel like computer games, not videogames. Ergo, not 'consoley' enough.