PS3 in the US press...
- Thread starter Jon Brittan
- Start date
Plenty unless I missed it, some of which we've touched on in the last few posts. Even if it was all in there, the point remains that it was obviously lost to a focus on the negative, apparently yielding an impression of "horrible".
Well as far as he's concerned and anyone else that has PS3 and it's games, it's not there now and there isn't any clear picture if this can even be enabled for the games released now or future games supporting an updated API. we just don't know.
The free thing just hasn't panned out yet. I'm still waiting to see what publishers do if they have to run their own servers. it could end up like japan did with the PS2, most games publishers charging for each game individually, again, we just don't know. All we know is that SONY's published games are going to be free.
Plenty like? I don't see any other significant features not mentioned...
heliosphere
Newcomer
That's why I gave scores for both CoD2 and Gears. As a launch title, Resistance is roughly on a par with CoD2, slightly lower scores but pretty damn close. A year has passed since then however and if CoD2 came out side by side with Resistance it might score a bit lower. If you compare big holiday 2006 titles rather than launch titles then Resistance is up against Gears, and there it fares quite a bit worse. I think between them those two comparisons are sufficient to counter the claim I was originally taking issue with:
You want me to make a list?
Ok.
- Local movie file playback up to HD
- The photo browsing options
- The ability to put other Operating Systems on the machine and completely change its characteristics (currently you can make it look like a PC..going forward it might be the best HTPC you ever had)
- The open nature of the system w.r.t. peripherals. Need a HDD upgrade on 'the other system'? Whoops. Meanwhile you can drop in something off-the-shelf on PS3. Ditto with things like headsets and the like. It's more consumer friendly, more expandable, and that's definitely a big and very relevant point for any user of the system. Heck, some people are using PC controllers on their PS3!
- Open web browsing
- Much more comprehensive backwards compatibility with a much wider catalogue of games
- That the online service is free
There's more, and there's more I won't touch because technically the article does mention them - but only as part of a roundly negative point.
Of course the system has flaws and issues that should be fixed, but I don't think you can say the article isn't taking a magnifying glass to them. I'm not going to say it's disingenuous on their part because it's probably one half ignorance, and one half people complaining loudly (mixed with a little classic hype-countering that journalists often like to engage in), but people here should probably know better when it comes to forming their own impression.
Sony still fail to convince the press that PS3 is an entertainment machine.
* Hi quality Blu-ray became "Who cares ?" in the Times article. From AVS Forum, it seems that the early adoptors care (Was told Blu-ray "MI:3" was sold out after PS3 launched).
* SIXAXIS became "Where's rumble ?"
* Backward compatibility
* Free online game was not highlighted, and yes it's still work in progress
* MotorStorm downloadable demo not mentioned (Only talked about Blast Factor). They probably also did not play Resistance long enough too.
* Other nice hardware features such as built-in Wifi, 40 Gb more disk space (since they only mentioned the $600 package), build quality, silent operation, ... etc.
The articles hand-picked negative items for newsworthiness. The NY Times article focuses mainly on usability issues which may not speak to PS3's value in the first place.
EDIT:
Missed out this:
* HDMI v1.3 became "Where's the HDMI cable ?" instead of talking about its value and implications.
* Web browser with You-Tube ? (became slow online store... Due to press time, aren't they accessing the Japanese online store from US ?). Also, if planned, Sony should have explained to those gentlemen that resources have been allocated to show the web browser during in-game. That's another mini-platform there (for refering to walk-throughs, or getting downloadable content)
Last edited by a moderator:
Well I can only agree 100%
Just wanted to point out that COD2 may not actually fair up as well in reality just as the scores indicate. COD2 as a launch title ma deserve it, Resistence may deserve that score now and it may actually be much better than COD2, but the sure thing is that GoW is better than both of these titles.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Ya I do agree they deserve much more credit than they're getting from these articles, you can't deny that. Things like open peripheral policy , silent operation, free online, standard hdd, standard charge and play cable, generic hdmi and usb cables, are all worthy of praise.
All I can't think is it's written from a more mainstream POV.
Did these articles even touch on the completely Broken nature of the PS3 scaling problems in games and BLU-RAY?
1080I only owners get royally screwed on the majority of games having to play in 480p,
720P owenres get screwed as the PS# only outputs BLU-RAy in 1080I
These are the two biggest issues with the PS3.
1080I only owners get royally screwed on the majority of games having to play in 480p,
720P owenres get screwed as the PS# only outputs BLU-RAy in 1080I
These are the two biggest issues with the PS3.
Always a dangerous thing to do to try and average an audience and adopt what you think is their point of view. Nonetheless, I think many of the things I listed would speak directly to pretty much anyone - a number of them directly relate to money and value, or maintaining the relevance or usefulness of existing investments. I think they're pretty major things regardless of the type of consumer and their specific interests in a system.
heliosphere
Newcomer
The only extra functionality over a 360 is that with Linux you'll presumably be able to rip and download (mostly illegal) movies locally (the 360 will offer legal movie downloads starting this week). For those people who want this functionality and don't already have a PC you're getting some extra functionality but how big a subset of the market is that?
The 360 has photo browsing, it seems the PS3 has a slightly slicker interface and some fancy transition effects but if you just want to browse photos in HD on your TV the 360 does a perfectly good job.
I personally doubt the PS3 will ever be a better HTPC than an HTPC but however it pans out most of that functionality is not available yet and there is still a lot of doubt over how many average consumers actually want their games console to be a PC.
Has there been a definitive answer on the warranty implications of installing your own 3rd party HD yet? If this all works as advertised it's a plus.
I'm still unconvinced of the desirability of web browsing on a TV through a console but could be a plus to people without a PC.
That's definitely a plus for those that care.
Most of the free elements are inferior to the free elements of Live Silver. Online gaming is free but also clearly inferior to the 360 at present. Not clear that this is a plus at the moment.
I don't think any of these points are glaring ommisions on the part of the journalists. They're mostly either features with questionable appeal to the mass market, unproven promises of future functionality or slight improvements over functionality that's available on the 360.
quest55720
Regular
I think the negative articles are completely justified and I hope they continue. Sony pimped the 2x as powerfull and xbox 1.5 for 18 months. Sony lied and got expectations way to high. Now that the PS3 has come out and the games are not in the same universe as the best 360 games the media is going to vent about it. They fell hook line and sinker for sony hype starting at E3 2005 and now that the device did not deliver they are going write negative stuff.
Anyone who can afford a 1000 dollar tv and 600 dollar console is going to have a a PC or 2 in the house. So who cares about the extra features the PS3 has they don't have any affect on playing games. I don't think the average person could careless about installing an OS on a console they just want to play games.
Hell sony has gotten off easy because the media has not made mention of the scaling issues of the PS3.
Anyone who can afford a 1000 dollar tv and 600 dollar console is going to have a a PC or 2 in the house. So who cares about the extra features the PS3 has they don't have any affect on playing games. I don't think the average person could careless about installing an OS on a console they just want to play games.
Hell sony has gotten off easy because the media has not made mention of the scaling issues of the PS3.
The statement doesn't imply they developped PC but that their bizness is PC-centric.
But they sort of developped PCs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX
By that logic, you could just as easily argue that most of their complaints are of questionable importance (or just plain wrong). It's an overly negative article (both of them), with little actual reason for them being so negative.
So what exactly is inferior in PS3 online compared to Live? If you are only looking some online fun, not wanting any teenage with huge helium voice to simply screw over your online experience, even if you can mute him, it will still make you god damn annoyed and it will probably ruin your experience down the line.
Never really understood whats up with the messages, considering I use my PC for e-mails and perhaps messenger once in awhile.
To me, the free gameplay is what matters ALOT, and I think it will matter ALOT, to most none hardcore gamers aswell. Don't you think? The article didn't even touch this and I think this is one major point they should have stated. Free online play, is always FREE, and people simply love free stuff. If you don't like what you are getting, don't use it. Atleast you didn't waste your money for nothing.
Live isn't much to pay for but I don't want to pay another payment on top what I pay for my ISP monthly at the moment. Its matter of principle. I don't pay twice for the same stuff.
I think being able to playback videos right out of the box without a dependency on a PC is pretty much a no-brainer.
You'd be surprised how many parents might like the sound of that..
It doesn't void your warranty. Sony even provides instructions on how to do it. They can't vouch for the hard drive's functionality, obviously.
I'm not sure how clearly inferior it is to play on dedicated servers for free, for example..
As I said above, with regard to some of these, I'd have to disagree entirely with that. But we could go tit-for-tat on this forever..
heliosphere
Newcomer
You can playback videos right out of the box on the 360 as well, it's a question of where you get the videos from. On the 360 there's plenty of videos (mostly trailers for games and movies) to download free off marketplace and there will soon be more interesting content for purchase. How are you going to get other kinds of video onto your PS3? You can rip it off a DVD, but if you've got the DVD anyway you could just watch the DVD. You can get it off a CD or DVD you've burned on a PC, but if you've got a PC anyway you could just stream it off the PC. Or you can download it off the Internet, that's a plus if you don't have a PC but I'm still not convinced there's many people who want that functionality who don't already have a PC.
And that's kind of the point. You're making out like these reviews are clearly biased with glaring ommisions of major PS3 features that everyone could want. Now you're admitting that we could argue for ever over whether these features are really that relevant to the majority of consumers. I don't think these articles are ignoring any major features that aren't of debatable value.
There is no argument in my mind at all, I simply don't have the energy to engage with you ad-naseum over something that's so clear cut.
Last edited by a moderator:
heliosphere
Newcomer
Poor friend list integration - you can't see what your friends are playing from in game and you can't easily invite them to join you any time. No universal voice chat - being able to talk to your friends and team mates in any game outweighs the inconvenience of muting the occasional idiot. No achievements / gamerscore - I thought that was a bit of a gimmick when I first got my 360 but I've really come to appreciate that feature. Pretty much all the reviews at the moment say the online experience on the PS3 at the moment doesn't live up to the 360.
