PS3, Holiday 2006

Well the Xbox 360 is coming out first so chances are the companies have announce their support for it first even though they may release a PS3 project later of that same game. No reason in talking about the PS3 game when you have to sell the X360 game this year or early next year, while the PS3 still doesn't have a true launch date.

How many games do you think are in development anyway for the 360? Last I heard the number was 165. And the last I heard in July there were 100 games being made for the PS3 in Japan alone.

 

Well for starters, DOUBLE the shader ops? Regardless of the usefulness of that stat, its pretty much split down the middle on this forum as to which chip will have more shader power overall, much less one having DOUBLE.

 

As of mid-September, from the MS TGS press-release:

"This holiday season, gamers in Japan, Europe and North America pining to experience jaw-dropping high-definition graphics, unmatched online play and compelling digital entertainment features of Xbox 360 will finally have the chance," said Robbie Bach, chief Xbox officer for Microsoft. "Renowned development studios around the world are busy putting the finishing touches on their Xbox 360 games. We expect a strong portfolio of titles on launch day and through the holidays that will appeal to fans of every genre and gamers in every region, and with more than 200 games currently in development, continuous new additions to the library are on the way."

Its all press-release smoke and mirrors anyway. Theyve both got all the devs on board at this point so its really splitting hairs...

 

To be fair, every single Walmart 360 display I've seen is setup wrong, but the ones that are setup right do draw a crowd...at least at my semi-local Best Buy.

 

There are announced titles, and there are titles in development. The two are distinct. MS, I believe, gave a figure for the latter - I remember Peter Moore talking about how he had visibility of x number of titles through to 2007 or 2008, and so that's probably a figure covering all titles in development, announced or unannounced. For PS3, we can only count announced titles, and you can be sure there are many more in development. As far as announced titles go, though, the support thusfar has been significant, and it's probably actually a greater level of public support than even PS2 had at a similar point in its lifetime. And that's another variable to consider here too - X360 and PS3 are at two different points. PS3 is still somewhat undercover in terms of publicity, MS is out there totally, obviously, with launch just a couple of weeks away.

edit - for what it's worth, IGN has roughly 160-170 PS3 titles in its database. With a distinct Japanese slant given the TGS announcements. That's only titles made public, as mentioned above. Wanna bet that if you included titles we don't know about it, it wouldn't eclipse the given X360 figure?

 

In terms of hardware, pricing, and the initial online service offering, yes. In terms of announced titles or those in development, there's no way to know who is holding what back and until when.

 

I believe the consoles were arriving at Wal-Mart set to 480i, 4:3, to be displayed on a widescreen HD monitor... *GASP*

 

Like I added in my edit above, it'd only take 30 or 40 PS3 titles that we don't know about for the PS3 total to eclipse the figure given by MS for X360. And I think given that so many western publishers PS3 plans remain undisclosed, it's very likely there's comfortably many more than that, that we don't know about.

And undoubtedly many publishers are keeping quiet on PS3 plans, particularly western, right now. I've little doubt Sony have asked them to hold back until 06 to keep some sort of lid on PS3 hype till then. Even in the list for the Japanese market, so many of them remain unnamed, probably in an effort to indicate that the support IS rock solid, without completely distracting from their current market focus.

 

100 billion vs 48 billion as quoted by each chip creater's, OVER double. thats a pretty big diference just there.

 

The official NVidia figure would be 136 * 550Mhz (74.8bn, I think?). The 100bn figure was for the system as a whole, including Cell.

HOWEVER, these figures are not comparable. As discussed countless times before, the methods used to derive shader op figures aren't directly equivalent.

 

ah yes .... the PS3 is better than X360 in every way and for those things that we don't have facts for we can just speculate that they are "secret".

 

If you think the extent, for example, of EA's PS3 support is Fight Night 3, Def Jam and Medal of Honor, be my guest There are obviously more titles planned or in development for PS3 than has been announced, probably a fairly significant number more - I think that's a very reasonable and safe expectation.

 

indeed that is true, but you must agree that extrapolating that to imply (without facts) that the number will quickly exceed X360 titles is still a bit of a stretch.

 

I'm saying it's very probable there are >30/40 titles for PS3 we don't know about I do not mean to present this as a fact, but a high probability.

 

agree it is a high probability but you are not factoring in the fact that the X360 list of titles will also continue to grow at the same time.

My point: I do not think that number of titles can/will be used as a selling point this Gen.

For clarification T, I am now referring to this:

 

This is extremely speculative. Why Sony would hold back numbers on titles in development is beyond me.

Given that practically every developer has stated support for the 360 as well as PS3 at this point, i'm not sure how we can surmise that EITHER console has the won, or will win, the 'quantity' war.

 

As of today, the PS3 wins the spec wars, the game wars, and the overall console wars, based on *speculation.*

How people defend speculation (sometimes pure speculation like ants "1 Rsx shader = 2 xenos shaders" tripe) I dont know.

Save the speculating for Merrill Lynch and/or February when a Real PS3 appears/is announced.

 

Yes, but it's fair to say that MS has exposed more of their lineup, which wraps back to the point of them being at different stages. Compare EA's announced X360 support to PS3 announced support. PS3 should be on the receiving end of more "revelations" going forward, than X360 (even if it's a once-off flurry pre-launch). Remember we also have an "in development" figure for X360, which already includes "secret" games that we'll see announcements for in the future.

Agreed, it's a silly point to be honest. But it comes up a fair bit

Why would they hold back on anything re. PS3..? Same argument, we've been here before. Again, ask yourself, for example, if the extent of EA's plans on PS3 are as they have announced up to now. Of course they're not, of course there is more. They've announced fewer titles than for X360, which solely comes down to the "being at different points" issue. Ditto for most other publishers.

To ask a question - would it really be surprising if PS3 did have more titles? I don't think it would. It's going to get all those titles that are specifically for the japanese market that publishers just wouldn't bother with on X360. Western support is "at worst" going to be as strong as X360. Without the same strength in all markets that Sony, the odds have got to be stacked against MS on this one.

 

The reason would be to minimize interest in PS3 to not impact PS2/PSP sales. eg. If they announce FFXII for PS3 with updated visuals, if that were in development, would that not detract from sales of FFXII for PS2? Assuming a lot of games for PS3 will be franchise derivatives, it's in Sony's and the software developers best interests to have existing customer buy existing games instead of wait for the improved PS3 experience in 6 months time. That's the logic as I see it.

Now can someone please explain to me why I'm posting in another merry-go-round who'll beat who thread? Why aren't we getting technical discussions? When in the blazes will we get to hear about RSX and actually cover something new?

 

yeah seriously. I'm about to find Ken and make him spell the beans on the RSX.