BusinessWeek on Next Xbox and PlayStation 3 (DM will like)
- Thread starter Megadrive1988
- Start date
thop said:
Well I haven't bought a console since Nov/Dec of 2000 so I say bring it on. I've resisted the Xbox because I don't like paying to play online.
But if Nextbox or whatever comes out in 2005 and we have online versions of ESPN NFL and Madden in HDTV glory, it'll be hard to resist.
Have not the slightest interest in Halo X.
But that brings up an interesting issue. Madden is based on the engine that EA developed for the original PS2 version and just ported to Xbox and GC.
If Nextbox comes out a year before PS3, could EA and other multiplatform developers make it the baseline or lowest common denominator platform? So that even if PS3 is superior, multiconsole games will not be that much better than what you get on XB2?
I was thinking of something, if MS really wants a good part of the marketshare, they should consider a "dumping" on XboxNext.
A 199$ XboxNext will take an enormous part of the market, it will be from the start a potential "impulsive purchase".
Sure there will be losses ahead and maybe lawsuits, but it will establish the console like nothing.
If MS plays it "regular" the first price of the console will be "high" (there's a % of customers, let's call them "hi-tech electronics enthusiasts", that will buy the machine at "whatever cost"), then they will drop the price to a "mainstrean audiance".
I think the "aggressive price" from Day1 could give to MS an incredible advantage.
You both know that Ram and processing power are not directly "connected" when it comes to a "price scheme", especially with the next consoles, Sony doing almost everything... except the XDR, MS licencing IPs of the CPU/GPU but have to buy RAM, and almost the same for Nintendo.
The amount of Ram being in the Next-gen consoles will depend on two thing, the time of the launch of the console (the later it's on shelves , more ram it'll have) and the "competition".
The latter will be very important between Sony and MS (remember the comment of MS about the amount of ram on XboxNext), i think that Nintendo will do what they have to do without trying to "front" in this area.
And yes i agrea that 256Mo will be, to paraphrase Decarte... "teh suxx0r!!!"
512Mo will be "required" especially if we keep it in context, because we 're talking about a machine that have to last until 2010/12.
And when you see the diference between a 128MO dev-Xbox and a 64Mo end-user-Xbox, therefore when you think to a 256Mo XboxNext/PS3 the words "useless computational power" comes in mind.
A 199$ XboxNext will take an enormous part of the market, it will be from the start a potential "impulsive purchase".
Sure there will be losses ahead and maybe lawsuits, but it will establish the console like nothing.
If MS plays it "regular" the first price of the console will be "high" (there's a % of customers, let's call them "hi-tech electronics enthusiasts", that will buy the machine at "whatever cost"), then they will drop the price to a "mainstrean audiance".
I think the "aggressive price" from Day1 could give to MS an incredible advantage.
Megadrive1988 said:
You both know that Ram and processing power are not directly "connected" when it comes to a "price scheme", especially with the next consoles, Sony doing almost everything... except the XDR, MS licencing IPs of the CPU/GPU but have to buy RAM, and almost the same for Nintendo.
The amount of Ram being in the Next-gen consoles will depend on two thing, the time of the launch of the console (the later it's on shelves , more ram it'll have) and the "competition".
The latter will be very important between Sony and MS (remember the comment of MS about the amount of ram on XboxNext), i think that Nintendo will do what they have to do without trying to "front" in this area.
And yes i agrea that 256Mo will be, to paraphrase Decarte... "teh suxx0r!!!"
512Mo will be "required" especially if we keep it in context, because we 're talking about a machine that have to last until 2010/12.
And when you see the diference between a 128MO dev-Xbox and a 64Mo end-user-Xbox, therefore when you think to a 256Mo XboxNext/PS3 the words "useless computational power" comes in mind.
It's budget buyers for both, overlap is kinda hard to avoid, particularly because consoles are just a small subsection of home entertainment market as a whole.
And you're making it sound as if leftover console adopters were a luxury Sony never had before. PSOne redesign alone outsold the brand new consoles from other manufacturers at nearly 2:1 across its lifetime to date. And that all while it competed against 3 consoles, one that plays all of its games.
If it's done as well as the previous model, expect PSTwo to be the best selling unit in 2005-2006, just like PSOne was back in 2000. The new consoles will get all the press, the little one will continue taking the sales.
Face it, Sony will sell truckloads of PSTwos to the same market segment(s) that bought truckloads of PSOnes 5 years ago. Ie, the "family sector" (those who've been buying Harry Potter games and Tony Hawk downgrades for PSOne like there's no tomorrow), as well as early adopters who can't resist a fresh machine to play their PS1/PS2 back catalogue on. The latter crowd will be quite significant if the piece looks sexy enough. I wouldn't mind it looking something like a minature PSX -- glass white, slot loaded and vertically oriented.
First of all, launching in '05 will alienate some of the Box's late adopters, & guess what? No backwards compatibility as well. The N5 can easily launch with a dark LOZ, Pikmin 3, Starfox, F-Zero, Mario, MP, etc. They have a million IPs. And are cementing close ties with most of the major Japanese development studios. (Capcom, Namco, Square-Enix, Konami, etc.)Bungie cannot develop Halo 3 quickly enough by that launch deadline. PC ports are also now more complicated in addition. As stated earlier, it will be on the shoulders of MS's in-house talent primarily. Support for the PS3 will be there if the SDK was written in Sanskrit. The Box could quite conceivably be the weakest of the 3, though there might be a visual threshold established that the games will look similar enough initially to not be truly noticeable. 2nd or 3rd generation games however.........
Li Mu Bai said:
That's what they said this time around... I'm still waiting to see this striking difference from the best PS2 games, namely Jak2, ZOE2 etc...
The diminishing returns will be even worse next time around so i guess unless PS3 REALLY has some exotic way of rendering graphics, the 3 console will output pretty much very similar graphics, just like they do now, everything considered. 18 months didn't really help Xbox being strikingly better than PS2, i don't think 12 months will help PS3 being strikingly different from Xbox2, unless, as i said, it focuses its graphics on different features than what xbox2 or N5 will.
We'll have to sit down and see...
^^ I suppose it all depends how you look it at it. Why don't XBox games with 18 monts later hardware look 'strikingly better'? Because the time gap isn't long enough or really good art-direction OR because PS2 has a more exotic hardware in which developers have more freedom and raw performance ?
I would certainly bet on the later. PS3 launching 12 months later AND being the exotic hardware might lead to a much wider gap than seen this time around. Being exotic by its nature though, I have little doubt that the average game could look well below what could be potentially possible (pretty much like now with PS2). Time will show.
I would certainly bet on the later. PS3 launching 12 months later AND being the exotic hardware might lead to a much wider gap than seen this time around. Being exotic by its nature though, I have little doubt that the average game could look well below what could be potentially possible (pretty much like now with PS2). Time will show.
Phil said:
It's all a bit philosophical
Oh i'll be waiting... And yes, the more power there is to exploit, the more shovelware we will get.........
BTW from the article:
Considering this is true, I think this is great, as I wouldn't want them to rush anything because of Microsoft or Nintendo. I'd rather see the PS3 being what the hype suggests and I am more than happy to enjoy my PS2 until then. As long as those games stay on the machine (MGS2, Final Fantasy), all is well
It would definately be interesting though what developers would do, if Microsoft launches in late 2005 and PS3 comes sometime in 2006 and almost 2007 in the states (fall 2006). Would they jump ship and bring the PS2 well-known franchises to a different console or wait for PS3? As someone already mentioned, I would think that they would hold off to see consumers reaction and then decide if it's worth it or not.
Molly Smith said:
Considering this is true, I think this is great, as I wouldn't want them to rush anything because of Microsoft or Nintendo. I'd rather see the PS3 being what the hype suggests and I am more than happy to enjoy my PS2 until then. As long as those games stay on the machine (MGS2, Final Fantasy), all is well
It would definately be interesting though what developers would do, if Microsoft launches in late 2005 and PS3 comes sometime in 2006 and almost 2007 in the states (fall 2006). Would they jump ship and bring the PS2 well-known franchises to a different console or wait for PS3? As someone already mentioned, I would think that they would hold off to see consumers reaction and then decide if it's worth it or not.
The more exotic hardware, the bigger technical gap between masterful code and shovelware. That won't change. In next gen, however, the gap will likely be much less obvious to the average punter.
A possible side-effect of that is that it will be quite possible for "anyone" (as in any reasonably talanted team) with a good idea to translate that idea into a reasonably high quality game. The technical hurdle to squeeze out "Good Enough Quality (tm)" may not be as big as this gen. On the other hand it seems much more likely that team sizes and development times will continue to increase -- at least if the expected amount of extras / cutscenes / promotion / etc keep rising. I for one wouldn't mind a major counter-movement to this, and perhaps the recent "boom" of PS2 budget games in Europe is the start of just that.
A possible side-effect of that is that it will be quite possible for "anyone" (as in any reasonably talanted team) with a good idea to translate that idea into a reasonably high quality game. The technical hurdle to squeeze out "Good Enough Quality (tm)" may not be as big as this gen. On the other hand it seems much more likely that team sizes and development times will continue to increase -- at least if the expected amount of extras / cutscenes / promotion / etc keep rising. I for one wouldn't mind a major counter-movement to this, and perhaps the recent "boom" of PS2 budget games in Europe is the start of just that.
Phil said:BTW from the article:
Molly Smith said:
Considering this is true, I think this is great, as I wouldn't want them to rush anything because of Microsoft or Nintendo. I'd rather see the PS3 being what the hype suggests and I am more than happy to enjoy my PS2 until then. As long as those games stay on the machine (MGS2, Final Fantasy), all is well
It would definately be interesting though what developers would do, if Microsoft launches in late 2005 and PS3 comes sometime in 2006 and almost 2007 in the states (fall 2006). Would they jump ship and bring the PS2 well-known franchises to a different console or wait for PS3? As someone already mentioned, I would think that they would hold off to see consumers reaction and then decide if it's worth it or not.
I'm sure many developers will want to release their games before 2007 (or late 2006), but just look at Final Fantasy or MGS games... Seeing the time gaps between announcing the games and actually releasing them, it doesn't seem Square or Konami are too worried about releasing their main titles with a hurry, which would help Sony a lot.
Many developers have already gone multi-platform, even though everyone thought they would stay "faithful" to Sony (Namco, Square, Konami wrt MGS and SH franchise)... So anything could happen.
Sony was clever enough to sort out their first party games this generation, it was a good move on their part, and although they're not Nintendo, they still have millions of people waiting for their first party games, which is something that can't be really said about MS apart from Halo *yawn*.
overclocked
Veteran
mid 2006 is just fine for me atleast, there soo many great games coming to PS2 in the next year so i think it´s smart to not rush anything out by Sony, personally i´m more interested in PSP for the moment.
Could Blue Ray be an advantage for Sony if the PS3 has next-gen optical disc while MS and Nintendo doesn't?
HDTV sales are growing at high double digits, even if HDTV tuner sales aren't growing as fast (although more sets will come out this year with the tuner integrated). But you don't need HDTV tuners to take advantage of Blue Ray equipment. If anything Blue Ray equipment might stoke demand for the tuners from all those people who have HDTV sets but have been mostly using them for DVDs.
We will hit over 10 million HDTV sets this year, if we haven't already. Seems like there's a fairly significant number of people interested in HDTV sources.
Of course, the other consoles will probably support HDTV resolutions in games. But will HDTV movies be a big selling point for consoles? Estimates are that the first HD DVD or Blue Ray players due in 2005 would be priced around $1000. So if Sony could provide BR functionality in a $300 piece of equipment in 2006...
HDTV sales are growing at high double digits, even if HDTV tuner sales aren't growing as fast (although more sets will come out this year with the tuner integrated). But you don't need HDTV tuners to take advantage of Blue Ray equipment. If anything Blue Ray equipment might stoke demand for the tuners from all those people who have HDTV sets but have been mostly using them for DVDs.
We will hit over 10 million HDTV sets this year, if we haven't already. Seems like there's a fairly significant number of people interested in HDTV sources.
Of course, the other consoles will probably support HDTV resolutions in games. But will HDTV movies be a big selling point for consoles? Estimates are that the first HD DVD or Blue Ray players due in 2005 would be priced around $1000. So if Sony could provide BR functionality in a $300 piece of equipment in 2006...
wco81 said:
Again, we'll see... To be honest, I and 99.99% of the people here in the UK can't really care about HDTV since it's a shamble here,so i guess BR won't really help PS3 with regards to HDTV. Only advantage here would be the increased capacity. At least until they sort European HDTV standards. Or TELL people what they are, to at least spread the interest.
Okay HDTV may not be a factor in Europe or Australia yet but I believe they should be in Japan and the US. And probably parts of Asia like Korea.
One of the vanity purchases in the US is a flat-panel plasma or LCD set, most of which are HDTV-capable.
Almost all big-screen TVs now are HDTVs (for a long time, the biggest growth in TV sales were all on big-screen or "home theater" sets) in this country. You can get a 32-inch 4:3 set from a name brand like Panasonic for $799 now. I've seen Philips 34-inch widescreen sets sell for $1199.
Last year, widescreen 34-inch sets were selling in the mid to high teens ($1600 and up). Like I said before, there are models coming out with built-in HDTV tuners (which run $400 and up) and more HDTV programming from cable and satellite sources.
The past couple of years, DVD sales have driven consumer electronic sales in the US. In the foreseeable future, that's going to change to HDTV, which are already seeing high double-digit growth.
Obviously the US is the biggest market but I believe Japan by itself is almost as big a market for video games and consumer electronics as Western Europe.
One of the vanity purchases in the US is a flat-panel plasma or LCD set, most of which are HDTV-capable.
Almost all big-screen TVs now are HDTVs (for a long time, the biggest growth in TV sales were all on big-screen or "home theater" sets) in this country. You can get a 32-inch 4:3 set from a name brand like Panasonic for $799 now. I've seen Philips 34-inch widescreen sets sell for $1199.
Last year, widescreen 34-inch sets were selling in the mid to high teens ($1600 and up). Like I said before, there are models coming out with built-in HDTV tuners (which run $400 and up) and more HDTV programming from cable and satellite sources.
The past couple of years, DVD sales have driven consumer electronic sales in the US. In the foreseeable future, that's going to change to HDTV, which are already seeing high double-digit growth.
Obviously the US is the biggest market but I believe Japan by itself is almost as big a market for video games and consumer electronics as Western Europe.
Similar threads
- Locked
