Game Industry Folks Siding With the Wii 432
Gamasutra's semi-regular feature taking the pulse of folks in the game industry turns its attention this week to the PS3 and Wii launches. From the comments submitted to the site, it seems that many industry vets are generally more excited about the Wii than with Sony's offering. From the article: "'Definitely a Wii (already pwii-ordered). The price point of the PS3 and the lack of enticing launch titles makes me as interested in a PS3 as I am interested in getting a root canal.' — Ryan Conlon, Gearbox Software. 'I am buying a Wii because Sony is too arrogant, from their dev tools to the price point.' — Ed O'Tey, Electronic Arts. 'Wii — pre-ordered. I applaud the attempt to expand and explore game interaction with the Wii. I will not be purchasing a PS3.' — Jim Perkins, EA Canada"
Development Costs (Score:2, Interesting)
Why would anyone buy a PS3 now? (Score:4, Interesting)
The only good launch title is Resistance:Fall of Man. The titles that are on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are better on the Xbox 360. Many of the games that were meant to come out for launch are being pushed back until there is a larger install base. There aren't that many movie titles available for the Blu Ray movie format right now. The PS3 will only get better with age. When there are a larger number of games available and there is a significant price drop, the PS3 may be a worthwhile purchase.
I'm not interested in the Wii, but I understand why people are. After seeing a video of the Wii in action I lost all interest. However a lot of message comments about the same video showed that there were many Wii fans. I think that the Wii will sell very well, I just won't buy one. At $249 with a game, it's a low risk investment in gaming. I may pick one up in a year or two if I see some games that interest me. If I was a Nintendo fan, I would buy one at launch.
It's just a matter of time before I buy an Xbox 360. It's high definition gaming at a much more reasonable price than the PS3. I don't want to watch movies on a console, so Blu Ray isn't very important to me. I am waiting for a significant price drop before I buy one.
no rumble (Score:2, Interesting)
that combined with lack luster launch titles (ridge racer is the best???).
and the high price...
I'd take a Wii any day over the ps3...
xbox just did everything right this time.
i used to love ps2.
but they just screwed up the controller this time.
Well maybe it is. (Score:5, Interesting)
Developing a game for the 360 is going to be a little bit cheaper.
Developing a game for the Wii is a lot cheaper!
It isn't a lot different than the Gamecube. Game makers have got to love it. Your old tools and skills transfer. No need to develop massive amounts of HD content. And best of all. Millions of consoles on the market.
Right now the best a PS3 game can hope to do is what, 100,000 units? That and it does look like a lot of fun!
Now what I hope is all 100,000 PS3s hit EBay today and the price plummets to $50!
Have a nice day.
Wii vs PS3 (Score:4, Interesting)
The best they can hope for is getting the general public that normally don't play video games to play the wii. Most people find xbox and playstation controllers confusing and cumbersome. Maybe the wiimote will deliver a more natural style of play with a lower learning curve, hence a lower barrier to playing games. However, hardcore gamers (and even moderate gamers) are pretty used to xbox and playstation style controllers and will probably find it harder to get used to the wii controller. I don't think they will get much of the hardcore and moderate gamer market. Maybe they can become the ipod of the video game world this generation?
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
And if you can pretty much get the controller for the PC via the Gyration mouse. http://youtube.com/watch?v=piEz74G6WPA [youtube.com] http://youtube.com/watch?v=HUGabGDLg8g [youtube.com]
Re:Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm beginning to think Sony might win (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a little better. The people who are twirly eyed over the PS3 do so based on three characters: P S 3. The people who are twirly eyed over the Wii have been following the tech news on the various consoles, read probably multiple articles and even hands on reviews on the subject.
Also, I suspect that it will hard to buy either a PS3 OR a Wii this Winter Shopping Orgy (Christmas). Both companies will be able to sell everything they can bring to market, although perhaps the scalping on the Wii will only be 50% as bad as on the PS3.
Re:Yes (Score:1, Interesting)
This would probably come out of a genesis of cheap graphics/CPU systems built for business.
Couple this with a Flash based card or other persistent memory technology which plugs into device, and you'll have uncopyable and relatively unhackable media that doesn't even need to install.
How, you ask? Boot off the game card itself. Include the entire OS since you only need a small part including drivers, which come down to about 4 companies at this point which all have unified drivers: AMD/ATI, nVidia, Creative, and Broadcom based network chips - heck, have the reader device provide audio and network connectivity, and you can eliminate 2 sources of uncertainty. Doesn't seem too hard. You could even have a small boot section that decrypts the rest of the OS. That would create a console out of your PC.
Re:Wii Campers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then, when the store opened at 8am, they kept filming the queue, watching the first 14 people get in the store (which had 28 consoles), and then all of those 14 new PS3 owners all headed towards the same truck after leaving the store... obviously giving them to someone who would be reselling them.
Then the reporter also passed a comment saying that some of the people waiting in line and getting a PS3 are not the type you would expect of a gamer, and that we're more used to see those people on street corners asking for change...
It's nice to see some of the media don't buy into the whole PS3 hype and aren't afraid of talking about people that hire bums to wait in line for them and such.
Re:Im not impressed by anything that's out yet. (Score:4, Interesting)
However, IBM has made no bones about the fact that the Cell is difficult to develop for (from the article [wikipedia.org] on the Cell processor):
Recall though that developers had the same complaints [ign.com] about the PS2 and its "emotion engine". It will take time to truly take advantage of the cell processor. I will be buying my Wii and waiting a year or two to see what churns out for the PS3. The potential is there, yes, but whether or not anyone exploits it remains to be seen.
Re:Well maybe it is. (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly the games I saw on the PS3 where pretty crappy. I just wasn't all that impressed.
From the publishers point of view if Sony doesn't get a bunch out on the market soon they will be hurting.
The Wii on the other hand looks like it will have a lot of consoles out for Christmas.
Microsoft's Gamble Pays Off (Score:2, Interesting)
So it looks like MS's gambit of bringing their next gen console out a year early -- considered risky by many because most people would presumably wait and see what Sony had up their sleeve -- might have paid off after all.
Re:'zonked' tag time (Score:3, Interesting)
Tremendous Demand?
Tremendous Demand would be selling more than 1 Million units in a day because so many people want to play your system they rush out and buy it; when you ship 400,000 (or less) units and the vast majority of people are buying it because they assume there will be a long term (supply based) shortage and they can make a decent profit selling it on eBay. If the rumors are right (which I'm not saying they are) Sony shipped about half of the 400,000 units they planned on shipping so this can not be associated with demand.
All we saw today was a company that had months to prepare for a launch and didn't come even close to producing a decent number of systems for it.
Re:College Student (Score:3, Interesting)
First cheese hole: As a "very very casual gamer" the market segment (college students that play Madden) you are describing is narrow, already won (according to you) and would be money down the toilet to focus on (unless you feel the Wii presents some threat to this segment). Market growth does not happen by keeping the status-quo.
Second cheese hole: People do want innovative controls. They don't mind a new control system, considering it may even be the first control system they have even learned (more on this in your third hole). A learning curve should be part of every game released. The DS is a great example of this type of situation. It succeeded beyond all college students' predictions that the PSP was the safe bet because that goofy new Nintendo had two screens, touch, and inferior graphics that couldn't play a movie. College students and their siblings bought the PSP in crazy numbers based on this focused segment's recommendations in some alternative universe. Branding really should mean something here. Oh wait, maybe they weren't released on school breaks when big bro' can tell the younger ones what they should like. All adolescents want to be their big brother, surely.
Third hole: "Nintendo has a stigma I'd say as being nerdy and childish." Well you would say that representing the ultra-casual gamer, but why are the DS games that are directed towards an aging population (Brain Age. Brain Academy) ripping up the charts? Could it be that they don't care if gramma has to learn an interface considering she has no old one to get upset about losing? And she liked it, and is buying more non-traditional titles (cooking simulator?!?). Japanese charts bear this out.
I could have many more holes, even pointing out that your post suggested that it was males that will drive the industry by concentrating on the sport-dorm and frat-boys (and graduates from) that influence a buying public. (Older brothers) Good luck with that attitude in the future. Meanwhile, Ninteno seems to be eating Sony's lunch.
I hope you aren't a business student.
Wii vs XBox360 vx PS3 (Score:2, Interesting)
1) XBox360 $399
- Best graphics for HDTV gaming
- Best online experience
- Best media support with online movie/video purchases.
- Secondary HDTV movie because of HDTV addon and missing DVI/HDMI connection.
2) PS3 $599
- Second to the 360's graphics with launch titles.
- Unproven online gaming experience.
- In theory, we are lead to believe that the system won't be used to full potential until developers figure out how.
- Best HDTV movie support from integrated Blu-Ray player and full HDMI support.
3) Wii $249
- Most original user controller design giving a hopefully useful and non-gimiky method to playing todays games and designing new games that will only be available on the Wii
- Unproven online gaming experience.
- Only about twice as graphically capable as a Gamecube, most likely being about equivalent to the original XBox, perhaps a bit better.
- No HDTV movie experience, or even DVD experience.
So, if you agree with me (god I doubt that will happen), then it should be obvious the PS3 is the worst choice to make here if you absolutely had to run out on Sunday to buy a gaming system. It is absolutely the most financial risk, with no to-date benefits versus the Xbox 360 to the gamer. Note, the keyword is GAMER, not a movie watcher.
It's clear to me the winner is the Xbox 360 for HDTV online gaming experience. If you want a new way to play games, it's the Wii. In my book, the PS3 doesn't qualify for anything, Blu-Ray is too cutting edge, no movies to watch, no idea who will win the format war. The PS3 is too expensive. It's been shown in multiple games now that it suffers frame-rate and online play issues versus the 360's version of the same game.
Personally, at $250 and a way I can get my Wife to play some games, and have fun parties when people come over, I am absolutely picking up one of these little bad boys.
I'll wait a bit to give the PS3 a chance to redeem itself, and if it can't within the next half a year or a year, then I'm picking up a 360 for some HDTV online action. Heck the premium system will probably be $299 by then and maybe even come with a bigger hard disk.
The only thing the PS3's good for to me is to resell on ebay, which I won't do.
Re:Well maybe it is. (Score:3, Interesting)
* Wii Devkit
* X360 Devkit
* PS3 Devkit
Re:Well maybe it is. (Score:3, Interesting)
Last generation Sony beat Microsoft and Nintendo to market by a year. This time Microsoft beat Sony and Nintendo by a year.
Last generation the Sony and Microsoft released at the same price, $100 more than Nintendo. This generation Sony's base price is $200 more than Microsoft and $250 more than Nintendo.
Last generation Sony sold 900,000 units it's first week in Japan. This generation Sony only managed to ship 80,000 units.
Last generation Sony sold 500,000 units at launch in the United States. This generation... well, Sony claimed they were shipping 400,000 but retailers were given last minute reductions so who knows what the actual number is.
Last generation Sony sold 500,000 units in Europe the first year. This generation they had to cancel their European launch this year.
Last generation Sony sold 100,000 units in Australia the first year. This generation they haven't even scheduled one.
Last generation Nintendo had the worst launch portfolio. This generation they have the best.
I could go on, but I think it's pretty obvious that this generation is considerably different than the prior one. Sure Sony had production problems last generation as well, but they still managed to ship more units in the launch window than their own competition at the time (the Dreamcast). By the time Microsoft and Nintendo made it to markey they not only had solved their production problems, but had a solid installed base.
Re:Yes (Score:2, Interesting)
So it's an upgrade to graphics and the scripted pseudo-AI used in the games. Seriously, I don't see the Physx and related technologies as much more than prettification devices. As long as stuff like this is used for particle effects and the like it's, well, eye candy. In other words, worse than completely irrelevant - it siphons off developer time that could have been used for better gameplay.
Once they show me a game that really relies on real-time physics calculation for more than mere effects I might be intersted. Fluid dynamics would be especially interesting. But until then, well, why the fsck should I waste my money on something that merely enables more effects?
I've stopped being impressed by video game techology a while ago. We have raytracing hardware but no OpenRT games (and yes, OpenRT looks more interesting to me than NVidia's latest GPU with 4096 parallel rendering pipelines. And even then, technological innovation === the development of more graphics efects. Heck, the same applies to pretty much anything that happens in the video game world. I've been sick of it whan Doom 3 came out and I'm still sick of it.
I think that's the reason I became a retrogamer in the first place: I don't see a reason to play wer games because they're mostly clones of old games with prettier graphics. And the interesting ones are not even as fun as the originals because they skimped on the QA (Gothic 3 being a prime exmple - not that Gothic 2 was cleaner when it came out).
Increase the pixels, increase the required art (Score:3, Interesting)
To put it simply, it takes longer to model and animate a character with 100 000 polygons than it does to do the same to a character with only 1000 polygons.
Lets start with the basic geometry. A faster machine can draw more triangles. Animating a low polygon character is easier than a high polygon character (fewer verticies to account for). What might have looked good enough on a low end machine will need alot more work on a high end machine. You also start having to worry about level of detail. With a faster machine, you will have to draw objects that are farther away. You still dont want to draw it at full detail though, so you make a low poly version of the same object, and decide which set of geometry and textures to use to render it at run time. So instead of making 100 enemies, your essentially making 200 (albeit half are simpler).
And lets say you add physics and destructible objects to a game that did not have them before. So now when you shoot that crate, it shatters and its bits fly around and bounce. Ok, now in addition to modeling the intact object, you have to figure out how your going to render its shattered parts, and you have to add information for things like friction and mass, and take the time to fine tune those values.
On top of that, the more game assets you have to create, the longer it takes to process all those goddamn polygons and textures when compiling the level data into a playable level file. At the start of each new console generation, it takes a while before your working on machines that can process all those disparate files. When the artists are making the levels, to test them they have to export them, play them and then tweak them. More detail means it takes longer to iterate on the game assets.
More Art means More Artists means more money.
And of course, the PS3 is nothing like the PS2, so you have to throw out or retool a great deal of tech.
Want to know why the Wii will do well? Its meant to handle geometry about on par with a standard XBox, so there its easier to generate art assets. Its api's are nearly identical to the gamecube, so about 90% of the old tech and tool chains are still viable. And the dev kits are cheap. The Wii is getting alot of developer support because its much easier to make a profit on its launch titles than it will be for a PS3 launch title.
END COMMUNICATION
Re:Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I've only ever owned Nintendo consoles (Score:2, Interesting)
This is exactly the way I feel about the three companies.
A few months ago, my kids and I were discussing what they wanted for Christmas this year. They started going on about the PS3 (in the past, they have had used PS1, N64, and GC consoles, as well as a variety of gameboys). We had a really good discussion which ended up with me stating that I would pretty much only consider the Wii, simply because Nintendo has never tried to screw me over in any way (I paraphrased that part for the littler ones). I can't imagine Nintendo screwing me over in the future either.
Nintendo is all about selling me a console or a handheld that is fun to use, and has fun games to play on it. That's it. A simple transaction. I give the guy at the store some money, and he gives me a console and a game or two. I go home and play it with the kids, and we have a good time. What happened to a company doing one thing and doing it well?
I don't want a "media center" taking over my living room (which is what both the PS3 and the XBox360 are really trying to accomplish). Microsoft and Sony both want to rule my digital world and keep a steady flow of cash going from my pocket to theirs in a variety of ways, especially Sony. Sony, by the way, nows controls the entire media chain from the media creation, to the distribution, to the player, and now the HDTV (and you thought the PS3 was about the games?). The PS3 is really all about the Blu-ray and HDTV.
I hate them both. Forced upgrades from one crappy OS to the next from MS, vendor lock-in like you wouldn't believe, DRM out the wazoo. One part of Sony sells MP3 players and minidisks, and then another part sues people who rip music. Un-be-freaking-leivable.
The irony of the situation is that the online stores attached to the Xbox and PS3 don't interest me in the least (neither do the price tags), but the ability to plonk down $20 online and get 4 older games on the Wii (or 1-2 slightly newer ones) is just my cup of tea.
I've always been a PC gamer, but MS is making that harder on me every day, and I'm getting burned out by the hardware churn. It's getting tougher every year to justify replacing perfectly good computer parts because I want to play the latest and greatest. I've never actually purchased a brand new console before, but I just may find myself picking up a Wii for the kids instead of a new motherboard and CPU for myself this Christmas. I'm actually excited about a console for the first time, ever.