I've been either very busy or very blotto recently so missed most of the development of this after the release of the consoles.
One thing that we're not taking into acount though is the level of specificity when making the games for these machines. Some of the single platform Marquee titles will likely look VERY good on these machines.
The biggest drawback to most PC gaming is coding/aiming for the lowest common denominator for the largest audience, and have to make the system work for MANY different possible setups. Cross platform games may be terrible because they have to play on Xbox360/PS3/PC/NinRevo, but the games that are truely 'built for ....' will likely be the ones to best showcase the advantages of each system and 'do things the others can't do'.
Also remember that the PCs are constrained by M$ OS as well, wehereas the consoles have the opportunity of going with the most efficient use with limited hijacked resources (I doubt the Xbox will stray from it's backyard though).
These things can be built from the ground up to be game playing devices with some other funcionality secondary, the PS3 seems geared for that (the DVD-Blue Ray stuff can be a seperate dedicated component which uses little/no gaming resources [but might not be due to cost and the obvious power on tap with the CELL core]), whereas the Xbox seems to try to be everything for everyone, and I think that will win it many people who want some PC functions without a PC (*cough* former WebTV users *cough*), but it is sure to hurt the true potential of the Xbox as solely a gaming system. Considering what they can still achieve to this day with the PS2, I'm sure that these consoles will have their truely stunning games later on once the programmers have real hardware to test on (not the hobbled test kits made of other systems [PCs]). Of course by then PCs and their components will have progressed while their concole competitors are stuck with the same hardware. This limitation was exposed in Xbox fairly early because DX8.1 with it's PS1.4 effects were felt in some early titles like Morrowind, and the move to PS2.0/DX9 only exacerbated that gulf, and that was very early in the Xbox's life cycle.
I still prefer PCs, but there are ways in which the consoles COULD be better, we'll just have to see if they grasp that opportunity and exploit it or whethe they get so bogged down with minutia that they lose or miss their major advantages. It all comes down to flexability versus specificity IMO, and that affects the programmers most.
In any case it should be a nice Xmas, and personally PS3 is leading the way in stunning demos, even if they are mostly cut-scenes more than actual-game play. If the gameplay is anywhere close the Xbox will need to get it's developers exploit more of it's hardware to really sell their case as to why we should buy the 360 instead of waiting for the PS3.
- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <A HREF="http://www.redgreen.com/" target="_new"><font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red></A> GA to SK
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram