Next gen console wars.
 

Well the specs are out for both platforms and some screenshots from the PS3. Despite impressive looking numbers I have the feeling the PS3 is going to not just beat the fuck out of the Xbox360 but tie it up, beat it for half an hour with a 2x4 and make it dig it's own grave. The screenshots are *incredible* Take a look for yourself. In every single spec the PS3 beats the Xbox, from backwards comparability to options for memory cards to every performance spec. Seems to me unless MSFT can pull some incredible games out their ass and Sony fails to produce any massive hits the Xbox is *screwed*.

I don't know about all that...I imagine that things will stay the same (i.e. Sony will continue its dominance over MS), unless MS can get more exclusives.

Better specs != success, or the Xbox would've kicked the PS2 to the curb, instead of barely being a blip on the PS2's radar.

The only question that matters is this: what games are coming for each console, and what exclusive games in particular? That will dictate what I buy.

The next Final Fantasy is quite a coup for MS I must admit.
One thing's for certain - the age of PC gaming is coming to an end, those Killzone pics almost put Doom 3 to shame. If a $300 console can do a better job than a $2k+ gaming rig then you can expect more and more titles to be console only.

Don't be too hasty. If the Xbox is getting <a href="http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=13743382">Final Fantasy XI</a>, that means very little in the larger scope of things, because XI was a significant departure from the typical FF line and _bombed_ miserably on PS2. I can pick up FFXI (packaged with the PS2 hard drive add-on) for about $30 right now, and have heard EB employees talking customers _out of_ buying it because they know they won't like it.

It's like how Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles fared on GameCube. The name drew some people, but it sure as hell didn't save the Cube from vanishing off the shelves.

As for PC gaming, well, don't write it off just yet. The online experience will always be better on PC, just as the four-guys-in-a-room multiplayer experience will always be better on console. Games will emerge to exploit both of those markets.

If I had a dollar for every time the age of PC gaming was predicted to end...

One thing that troubles me about the PS3: the controller.

<img src="http://img123.echo.cx/img123/7618/050517i7rh6rp.jpg" border="0" width="400">

Someone at Sony said "Hey, I know! Let's take our controller layout that's been the industry standard for years and replace it with a fucking BATARANG!" and didn't get fired. Alas.

It could be worse...there could be more buttons to figure out.

Can't judge controllers till you hold them for a few hours, Sony are generally pretty good on usability (with some notable fuckups), I'll withold judgement on that for now.

I've always been a PC gamer, I've never owned a console though I've lost plenty of hours on them over the years. Net gaming is funny - if one thing put me off it it was the Counterstrike experience. I started playing in Beta 3, it kicked all kinds of ass, I stopped shortly before it got to 1.0 and started again a bit later. Cheats. Thousands of them. Continually. While it was eventually brought to an almost-tollerable level it was still so frustrating, both to be killed by a cheat and to be accused of cheating continually if you were a skillful player. By all accounts, nothing has changed. The closed environment of consoles makes cheating much harder. PC gaming will die when the PC does but it does seem to have become more marginal over time. Why develop for a platform that makes piracy easy and cheating a constant drain on your development team, as well as trying to get the fucker stable on shitloads of hardware when you can develop for a platform that isn't a moving target, is secure and makes piracy difficult (or at least more difficult and much more with the next gen)? That's the question at least mainstream PC gaming faces.

also - PS3 - totally backwards compatiable.
XBox360 - kindasorta backwards compatiable on some titles.

Heh. You've just described why before buying <a href="http://www.cellar.org/showthread.php?t=8295">Guild Wars</a>, the last online multiplayer game I'd played online was <a href="http://www.netrek.org">Netrek</a>. I ranted substantially about the multiplayer experience in the link above so I won't reproduce it here.

When I play on my PC, I'm generally doing so solo. Between MAME, other emulators, single-player mode on FPSes, Morrowind and such, I've held up fine. Do I do a lot more single-player gaming on consoles? Sure, as that's what they're designed for. But occasional diamonds do leap out that make the PC a worthwhile platform.

Hello Sega Dreamcast!

THAT's _the_ obstacle for PC gaming, and it's gotten worse over the years. I can't name a single popular modern PC game whose troubleshooting forums aren't packed with crash-to-desktop and other complaints.

The Xbox _really_ needs this to help bring in people like me. The Xbox has three, maybe four exclusives that I'm interested in (Panzer Orta, Deathrow, Jade Empire, Outrun 2), but none of them justify the purchase of a system by themselves. If buying the next generation means getting the current generation as a bonus, that's attractive, and there are a hell of a lot more people out there who already have PS2s than who already have Xboxes. As a PS2 owner, PS3s being back-compatible is more of a nice bonus than a selling point.

I left Nintendo (my first, and for a very long time exclusive, gaming love) for Sony when the N64 was being phased out because the GC games all looked LAME.

I will be getting one of these PS3 things.

I haven't decided on the Sony handheld yet, though. I'm happy with my GBA-SP.

Neither handheld has impressed me yet; I've heard the siren song of Lumines but haven't taken the plunge yet. If Dynasty Warriors had been better, that might've swayed me at launch.

As for the DS, show me Nintendogs and I'll consider it.

It could be worse...there could be more buttons to figure out.

There is nothing worse than reading instructions and being asked to press "triangle". "Press Up", "move joystick left", "squeeze trigger", and "press A" are all valid commands. "Press circle", for some reason, annoys me to no end.

If a $300 console can do a better job than a $2k+ gaming rig then you can expect more and more titles to be console only.

I absolutely hate the fact that you have to spend thousands of dollars on a PC to game, but at the same time I can't bring myself to play a game on a television. The PS3 might actually pull me in with the ability to do 1080i.

You absolutely do NOT have to spend thousands, unless you're a junkie who absolutely has to have state-of-the-art video, audio and speed.

For instance, I'm pricing out a config for a new PC on NewEgg myself, one that would be perfectly adequate for gaming (3000+ Athlon, a gig of memory, 128MB PCI-Express GeForce 6600GT video card, DVD burner, Antec case and PS, etc.), and it's coming out to around $800 right now with a decent upgrade path down the road.

Can I put the newest and greatest game on that, crank every single graphic slider to the maximum and expect an absolutely rock-solid framerate at all times? Probably not. But can I expect that to more than meet "recommended requirements" for games and play appreciably well for the next couple of years for under a thousand bucks? Yup, and I can upgrade it with newer parts to some degree as time goes by and technology advances to delay buying the next one.