PS3 Day
This is pretty redundant to say, but crazy stuff is happening today. The highlights:- There are numerous reports of PS3 launch day violence, the worst of which consists of people being shot in line.
- PS3 units are reportedly (source: G4 TV) being sold on eBay for $2700+ USD.
- Some nutwigs smashed a PS3.
- Is it just me, or is ebgames.com actually down?
If you've been following this blog at all, you already know that I'm not planning to buy a PS3 very soon. There are various features that I'm excited about (backward compatibility, removable hard drive, multi-format card reader), but the bottom line is that right now there are no PS3 games that I am dying to play. Allow me to emphasize that: there are no great PS3 games yet. As excited as I am about how great the console is, I think it'll be pretty easy to bide my time until there's something out for it that I really want to play.
The situation for the Wii is looking fairly similar, which is to say that there aren't any launch titles that really excite me except for the obvious one--Zelda: Twilight Princess. But Wii Sports looks like a fun diversion, and the Wii is not nearly as massive an investment in terms of price as the PS3. These things make it a lot easier to justify buying one, and I'm also looking forward to playing some old NES, SNES, and Turbo Graphix 16 games on my Wii before long.
Just so we're clear, I do intend to buy a PS3 eventually. It looks like a solid product, and I'm only going to jump ship on it if it flops. The XBox 360, on the other hand, is looking pretty weak. After an entire year of existence, the only games out for it that really catch my eye are Gears of War and Dead Rising. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is pretty cool, but I already have that for PC. The bottom line is that if I had an XBox 360, I'd probably use it, but I'm not about to rush off to buy one. If the current rate of compelling XBox 360 releases keeps up, it'll easily go through a whole five year lifespan without seriously tempting me to get one.
Finally, I'd like to mention something about Sony brany loyalty. I'm not really sure why, but I have a hard time appreciating the logic behind it. What Sony provides is solid hardware with fantastic third-party developer support. The companies that I end up drooling over tend to be publishers or developers like Square-Enix, Konami, Capcom, Nippon Ichi, and Atlus. What does Sony make that's so great? Oh yeah, the console.
I dunno, maybe I'm being completely irrational here, but it just seems to me like people have some kind of hang up distinguishing between the hardware and the software where video games are concerned. When you play Final Fantasy XII or Guitar Hero, it isn't thanks to Sony that these games are possible. These games could easily have happened on the GameCube or the XBox; the main reason that they appear on the PS2 is because of the installed user base--ie. because the hardware is widely used and available. So how is it that people develop this strong attachment to Sony when their role in making the games possible seems to be so minimal?
On the other hand, actually getting your console to be installed in the market as the de facto standard of console gaming hardware in any given generation is an extremely difficult trick, and Sony does deserve a lot of credit for that. The competition has been stiff and they've proven themselves worthy by conquering two back-to-back generations. I just find it hard to swallow that people are in such a panic to acquire the PS3 for what seems to be, in some cases, little more than brand loyalty. The reason for getting a PS3 should be because there's some awesome game for it that you're looking forward to--not because you love Sony. That's my two cents. After all, that's why I pre-ordered a Wii: not primarily out of a love for Nintendo (although my love for Nintendo was a strong factor) but because of the games that are going to be out for the Wii over the next few months.
As a final cautionary note, I'm going to point out that it is possible, although very unlikely, for the PS3 to still fail. If we see endless delays in major projects start to pop up and if the releases for the first year are too thin, that will provide an easy opening for one of Sony's competitors to grab market share. Of course, this exact problem could also plague the Wii and seems to already be affecting the XBox 360. Really, it's anyone's game at this point, although my money is still on the PlayStation 3 to be the #1 console by 2008. The year 2007 is much more in flux and I'm predicting that it's simply going to be a lean year for the console gaming industry all-round; not unlike those pre-XBox years where it was all about the Dreamcast and the PS2.
This could end up being a good time to have a reasonable PC gaming rig set up. Also, although the PS2 has been stronger than any other console this year, I think 2006 has truly been the year of the Nintendo DS, and that popularity will carry the DS over into 2007 as well. Secretly(?), I have my fingers crossed that the Wii will exceed expectations and bring Nintendo back into the limelight after playing second fiddle for roughly a decade, but it's a silly hope.
posted by Parappa @ 4:35 PM
4 Comments:
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is pretty cool, but I already have that for PC.
Speaking of PC-to-360 ports: have you noticed that the 360 version of F.E.A.R. is being advertised as "the first blockbuster action hit of the season" and so forth -- as if it hadn't been released for PC last fucking year?
Yeah, I did notice that. :) It's a big deal for the PlayStation 3 as well. The commercials make the game look as good as it does on my PC--except that my PC monitor kicks the living crap out of what passes for my TV set in terms of image quality (not size, though.)
I suspect that the PS3 may be able to best my current PC rig in terms of GPU power (maybe?), but only for a game that's optimized to make full use of the PS3, which I'm assuming isn't the case for the F.E.A.R. port. I highly doubt that an XBox 360 could make F.E.A.R. look as good as it does on my PC. That's all speculative of course.
And, vaguely related: how about a 360-to-PC port? I played some Gears of War at my MA instructor's house after watching UFC 66, and while I'm not at all impressed with the control scheme (console FPS; no surprise there), it looks like a game I could get into given a keyboard and mouse.
Two things impressed me about Gears: the seamless level transitions, and the terrain-heavy gameplay. The graphics were pretty good, but honestly nothing special. The art hung together in style and content, and the engine pushes enough tris to make it look good. Weapons felt ineffectual, like F.E.A.R.'s, but maybe that's because I was too drunk to hit anything. :-)
Sounds like Gears of War is yet another solid console FPS that would have been better on PC. Of course, just about any FPS would be better on PC--provided that they don't gimp the A.I. (as they tend to do for console versions, to make them within the realm of a reasonable level of challenge) or mess up the control scheme. I'd be willing to bet that if Gears of War did come out for PC, it would somehow end up being not as good as a PC-native FPS. Similarly, PC-native FPSes like Half-Life or Max Payne are never as good on consoles as the console-native FPSes, even though they kick royal ass as PC games.
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