Hands On with PlayStation 3: Sony Makes Third Generational Leap But Is It Worth

[Whizzard9992]

Yeah I agree with you 100%. Console games appeal to the consumer as much as they do developers. With computers, not only do you have to develop support for a wide range of hardware, but you're in a constant state of learning. Once you develop one title, your next project uses a whole set of new technology. As far back as I can remember, game frameworks have been changing. At one point, I would have said, "Glide will dominate everything. Eventually, nVidia will have to license glide." I would have made similar statements about OpenGL and D3D taking a dive. Until recently, physics were a 'nice-to-have'. I'm sure we'll see physics technology bounce around for a couple of years until something gains dominance, all at the expense of developers.

I see your point with regards to the PS2, and a good example is Final Fantasy 12 (Why this wasn't released on PS3 is beyond me. It would have been a clutch release title). FFXII is a great looking game for 5 year old hardware. Console hardware usually isn't fully utilized until the 4th or 5th generation games, and by then you have a new console out. From that perspective, I guess Sony is on the right track. M$ is on the other spectrum of that, where rumors have it a new system will debut soon (3-5) with a M$ graphics chipset. Hardware expertise leads to better games at reduced development costs.

As exciting as the Wii is, one can't help but wonder in what state the Wii will be in 3 years, let alone 5 or 10. The Wii has built its foundation on 'developer ease based on existing technology'.

What's nice is with all of this risk abound in the Console Wars, a lot will be learned as a result. Ultimately, I hope Sony loses because I don't want future-generations of consoles to push this far into my expendible income. If sony comes out on top, I fear game consoles will remain at or even surpass the price of the television on which they are played.

 

[cafuddled]

I don’t think there will be a winner or a looser in regards to the consoles. They both have their merits, where the X360 is rigged up to the more casual lightweight gamer that likes cheap thrills and shorter game session. The PS3 is really something someone can take more pride in, someone that is more in to there games than just a casual play. The wii seems to be a consol that will be used for party’s or when you have mates round, but just like the cube it will seldom have a game that will grip you and immerse for hours on end. Because it seems most Nintendo games nowadays seems to be geared towards the younger generation.

“Tales of Symphonia, why not just hold my hand and speak to me in baby talk”

People complain about the price but it’s not like the price is going up, I paid about £400 for my Play Station back in 1995ish and I would be more than happy to pay that for a PS3. Hell if you take inflation since then the consol should be more like £550, it’s not like your not getting what you pay for is it? Who knows maybe we won’t get ripped off for the games further down the road like is happening for the X360, £50 for 6 hours of entertainment… I could hire a hooker for less!!!

 

[nomad440]

You know what, I agree about Sony falling to it's knees for a while, however, i feel it wont shake the foundations too much, my guess is that after the first price drop of the PS3, people will flock to the stores, wilth the whole "I-told-you-so" attitude, and buy the thing anyway. Sony's biggest risk, concerns their developers, it is not as easy to create PS3 games compared to the others. a game than runs on the xbox and is well programmed will beat some mishapen attempt on the PS3, then the PS3 gets a bad rap and the developer looks bad. Sony must watch out for this one, it's one thing making a killer console, its quite another making it too hard to create a game on it. not everybody is EA,SQUARE etc

 

[hypnotic_frog]

We've been hands-on with a PS3 retail unit for the past week, examining everything from the Blu-ray player and sleek console design to the SIXAXIS motion-sensor controller. Is the hype surrounding Sony's new machine justified? And just what do you get for the best part of $600?

In any event console looks nice.

 

[Niamh900]

Whizzard9992,

Sorry for not getting to this sooner!

1080i/p definitely has more horizontal resolution than 720p but I don't give that much weight because 1) the human visual system is weighted to the vertical rather than horizontal (we're much more perceptive of vertical resolution) and 2) ALL recording formats for 1080p/i are subsampled. They're all recorded to tape/hard drive at 1280/1440x1080.

There is also the fact that very, very, very few cameras can actually resolve detail in 1080p material beyond what is available in 720p. Pretty much only the highest end cameras like the Cinealta (which was used on Starwars) have glass which is good enough to make use of that many pixels. Also, all of these cameras use pixel-shifting to achieve higher resolutions which doesn't always provide resolution up to spec.

In short, there's very, very little material (other than perhaps HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movies and even then it's questionable depending on the process used to get the footage off of the film) that makes a 1080p/i display worthwhile. I'm all for 720p in the mean time and I would like to see 1080i die in preference of 1080p simply because the technology is prone to fewer artifacts and is simply better all around.

One thing not taken into account here as well is viewing distance which further negates any possible benefit of 1080p/i.

 

[cafuddled]

I used to have a friend that had a 50” HDTV that we used to play 360 games on and watch his HD sky on. On TV it’s not so noticeable as it does look impressive and the pixilation is hard to see. But when playing games on the 360 even though it used 2X AA minimum on all games you can still notice the pixilation to an extent that it is always on the back of your mind.

I normally play games on my 20” 1680X1050 monitor and you can still notice pixilation on that too so as far as gaming is concerned unless you use a very high level of Anti Aliasing then you will always get this effect but it is defiantly less noticeable on 1080p of course.

Oh a little side not, you can pick up a 1080p 50” DLP TV for about $1300 now so I see no reason to go 720p unless you want a small TV.