The important questions for the next generation

[jvd]

Yes i'm sure they know but not many care , alot of them saw what happened with the psone , they were able to get new games up till 2 years after the ps2 launched and many saw the horrible things that happened at the ps2 launch (very few units , craptasitc games ) and don't really care .

They aren't going to go look for info on this , they will wait for the info to be given to them on tv . If ms launches first , they will know all about a new xbox and see the wonderfull graphics and sony saying hey this will be better wont help much as last gen ms had the better graphics and that will stick in thier heads



I've already given my view on nintendo , they will have the most powerfull system , launch inbetween the xenon and ps3 and have the best games once again.

Ms can launch whenever they want , as long as the graphics make a big enough jump and there are reasons to upgrade.

 

[Pepto-Bismol]

I've already given my view on nintendo , they will have the most powerfull system , launch inbetween the xenon and ps3 and have the best games once again.

According to some analysts, the revolution that's brewing at Nintendo is a barebones PlayStation 3 with a design and price that appeals to students.

 

[thop]

I've already given my view on nintendo , they will have the most powerfull system , launch inbetween the xenon and ps3 and have the best games once again.

Where does all the confidence come from?

 

[Ty]

I've already given my view on nintendo , they will have the most powerfull system , launch inbetween the xenon and ps3 and have the best games once again.

Where does all the confidence come from?

His secret sources!

 

[jvd]

I've already given my view on nintendo , they will have the most powerfull system , launch inbetween the xenon and ps3 and have the best games once again.

Where does all the confidence come from?

His secret sources!

Shhh don't spill the beans on the strippers !

 

[Fafalada]

IF ea doesn't take advantage of making a new engine for xenon then sega will and the sega sports games are currently every bit as good as ea's . But ea has the stronger name.

Sega sports are now budget priced (since TakeTwo publishing deal), and they still struggle to sell even 1/3 of what EA sports do. Although sales did improve thanks to the new pricing this year.
Nevertheless, I doubt it will make much difference even if they looked a bit better for one year - they already had that benefit before PS2 came out and it didn't help much.

 

[wco81]

Actually, there are signs that EA isn't faring as well.

Although they announced that Madden shipped more than ever in the first week of release, they've since announced a Buy 2 get 1 free promotion that they're even advertising on TV.

That is in effect a 33% price cut. Plus they cut the price of NBA Live from $50 to $40. In Gamespot's chart, Madden is no longer in the top 10, less than 2 months after release. I could swear the past two years, they were in the top 10 for months.

Even fans of the series chided EA for charging $50 for the same engine which was inaugurated in 2000. Yet they sold millions each year.

Like I said before, EA could put out an "enhanced" version for next year, supporting HDTV resolutions, maybe increased geometry, etc. using the PC game engine.

That is if it decides that PS3 will be their main platform.

 

[jvd]

IF ea doesn't take advantage of making a new engine for xenon then sega will and the sega sports games are currently every bit as good as ea's . But ea has the stronger name.

Sega sports are now budget priced (since TakeTwo publishing deal), and they still struggle to sell even 1/3 of what EA sports do. Although sales did improve thanks to the new pricing this year.
Nevertheless, I doubt it will make much difference even if they looked a bit better for one year - they already had that benefit before PS2 came out and it didn't help much.

the sega sports line up sold very well on the dreamcast , esp when you take into account that it was a brand new line up. It still continues to sell well , though not steller and one of the reasons why they lowered the price was to get more people hooked into it .

All the reviews i've read (i'm not actually a video game sports fan) put the sega line ups around the same scores of ea .

A year advantage on the xenon will not only give them the console to themselves for sports tittles (if ea doesn't go full force into it) but will also give them a year lead on the engine .

I'm not saying it will be a clean sweep for ms if they launch first , it will just put them in a much better position and hte long sony waits to launch , the better that position will be .

 

[aranfell]

they've since announced a Buy 2 get 1 free promotion that they're even advertising on TV. That is in effect a 33% price cut.

Only for those who were going to buy 3 anyway. For those who were going to buy two, it's a price cut by the cost of mfg/dist/royalties of one game. For those who otherwise would only have bought one, it presumably works out a profit. So maybe the right question is: why do they think people need such a strong incentive to buy more than one?

 

[Fafalada]

That is in effect a 33% price cut.

SegaSports prices were cut real 60% across the board, and sales have seen a significant increase from last year as a result.
Even with EA still dominant, I would imagine the latter warranted some kind of response.

Heck, if what you said about fans chiding EA prices is true, they will only have more ammo for that now that the only real competition is selling at budget prices.

Like I said before, EA could put out an "enhanced" version for next year, supporting HDTV resolutions, maybe increased geometry, etc. using the PC game engine.

I was agreeing with that - it's very unlikely that Sega's 1st generation efforts on Xenon will look significantly better then that anyhow. Though it all depends on what EA plans to focus on as their primary platform.

I'm not saying it will be a clean sweep for ms if they launch first , it will just put them in a much better position and hte long sony waits to launch , the better that position will be

What I argued is that I expect the EA sports to sell well on Xenon regardless of whether it's a "true" next generation or not. Meaning it wouldn't really negatively affect system sales, Sega sports or not.

 

[Farid]

This is true. I'm sure if Sony waited until the very last minute to launch the PS3, the market is going to take a huge turn -- possibly in Microsoft's favor if Nintendo doesn't deliver next-gen.

In the US, that's indeed a possibility, in Europe or Asia, i think 1 year will do nothing about the situation. People will do what they did with the PS2, they'll wait.

For instance:

Xbox

North America: 9.17 million installed base per June (source: NPD)

EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa): 3.9 million*

Asia Pacific (Japan, Taiwan, Australia): 1.5 million*

PS2

North America: 24.12 million installed base per June (source: NPD)

Europe: 24.96 million*

Japan: 17.52 million*

*units shipped

 

[m1nd_x]

IF ea doesn't take advantage of making a new engine for xenon then sega will and the sega sports games are currently every bit as good as ea's . But ea has the stronger name.

Sega sports are now budget priced (since TakeTwo publishing deal), and they still struggle to sell even 1/3 of what EA sports do. Although sales did improve thanks to the new pricing this year.
Nevertheless, I doubt it will make much difference even if they looked a bit better for one year - they already had that benefit before PS2 came out and it didn't help much.

well, i find it sad that games sell based solely by name alone, which is the case with almost* all EA games. Charging $50 for a yearly updated title with little enhancements and generally the same defects is scandelous.

Sega proposed a good solution I think, that both makes their game more appealing and addresses a problem that kept me from updating my sports titles every year.

 

[Wunderchu]

http://cube.ign.com/articles/552/552926p1.html

 

[one]

http://cube.ign.com/articles/552/552926p1.html

So,

Xbox2 in 2005 -----------> DVD
PS3 in 2006? ------------> Blu-Ray
Revolution in 2006? ------------> ???

 

[rabidrabbit]

Could it really be that MS still goes with DVD for next gen.
PC's are still mainly CD's, although in gameplay perspective you could say they are neithe rCD or DVD, but HDD.

But if MS is going to integrate the xbox and PC more closely together. For example they're going to standardize the controller so that PC games and xbox next games would use the same controller, and "Longhorn" is supposed to function like consoles, so that you'd just pop in the disc and play.

If xbox next would use HD-DVD, or even BR, would that mean that Longhorn PC's would also need to be upgraded with HD-DVD or BR?
As many gamers apparently still have only CD players/recorders on their PC's (at least the games houses think so, because so few games come in DVD's today), would they be happy to upgrade to expensive HD-DVD or go with the cheap DVD burners.

Of course if xbox next came at the end of 2005 with HD-dvd, and Longhorn sometimes at the end of 2006 or 2007, then they could perhaps be cheap enough.

I think xbox next will come with recordable DVD, that it will also function as a video recorder, maybe without a HDD. No ability to play or record high definition pre recorded material
PS3 will come with a non-recordable BluRay, with the ability to play back high def material, but not to record anything.

Which one would be more lucrative as an "added bonus" like DVD play this gen.

 

[PiNkY]

ps3:

Imo sony will come out first next-gen, save for any grave mistakes. They have the brand awareness and a large developer following. Also with the industry expecting severly increased developement costs and thus basically requiring higher sales on each individual next-gen title, sony's expected number one status could create a self-fullfiling prophecy in regards to devs targeting this plattform first (and foremost).

Paper prowess will be even less important next gen. Basically worldwide console sales have been inversely proportional with the consoles respective graphical/audio capabilities this gen. The perceived differences will be even less pronounced next gen with most "blockbuster" titles being cross-plattform anyways.

Blue-Ray might not be as much of a system seller if ps3's implementation is read-only as the primary use of these enhanced capacity formats is to have an appropriate recording media for the hdtv crowd. There is a chance however, that widespread deployment will make blueray a viable distribution media also. I don't see this to be a relevent factor at ps3's launch however...


Xenon:

I am most excited about PC-X-Box interoperability. I think this is a feature to really differentiate for ms. At least this seems a much more worthy addition then hd-playback capabilities to me (read: average-joe).

As stated before, i don't see a whole difference in perceived prowress. The change to 90nm lithography has only had a rather limited impact in regards to performance increases (see P4, PPC970...). The large steps are expected well into the process lifecycle (read begining of next year for ibm & intel) indicating that the maturing period is ever increasing here. Also being conservative and not relying too much on new (& unproven) processes has a habit of working out these days (see AMD/INTEL/IBM with AMD being on top and clearly the most conservative and NVIDIA/ATI last year).

I'd expect Xenons success to be inately related to ms's willingness to expand their first party lineup. They quite impressed me for their first gen but they still have ways to go to even come close to nintendo.


Revolution:

Frankly i don't see them first in performance and why should they. If they had difficulities this gen it certainly had more to do with appealing to the 18+ demographics through their design then anything else. If they manage to get it right this time (without alienating their younger followers), come up with a cost effective architecture again and play out their unmatched developing prowress, there's hardly a reason to write them off. They probably won't come out as number one in regards to overall sales, but ultimatly they don't have to. Their ability to turn a profit where others don't and cater to numerous 'niche markets' makes them an even stronger player imo. There's is obviously little to be gained for them in competing against the world largest software house and one of the largest home entertainment companies for creating the home media server plattform for the next 5 years...

 

[one]

But if MS is going to integrate the xbox and PC more closely together. For example they're going to standardize the controller so that PC games and xbox next games would use the same controller, and "Longhorn" is supposed to function like consoles, so that you'd just pop in the disc and play.

Though they announced sharing controllers and Xbox Live servers between Xbox2/Longhorn, sharing games is highly unlikely. What's the point of getting Xbox 2 when you can play it on your PC with higher resolution? For the same reason, sharing Xbox Live between PC and Xbox 2 won't gain as much users as expected for Xbox 2.

If xbox next would use HD-DVD

If it supports HD-DVD, MS has to announce it as early as possible because it has to collect as many partners as possible but it doesn't so far. Then, if late 2005 launch is true, I doubt MS can get blue-laser drives for reasonable price.

I think xbox next will come with recordable DVD, that it will also function as a video recorder, maybe without a HDD. No ability to play or record high definition pre recorded material
PS3 will come with a non-recordable BluRay, with the ability to play back high def material, but not to record anything.
Which one would be more lucrative as an "added bonus" like DVD play this gen.

Why do they need to raise the cost of a console with such a useless bonus in watered-down PSX-style without HDD? Offering different types at launch is also unlikely because of cost problem.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I think it would be a smart move from MS to integrate the xbox and PC even more closely than just XNA.
I don't know how far they are going to go with it, but I'm pretty sure not as far as to make the xbox next games be able to run on Longhorn PC's.
The PC and xbox next seem to be having such different architectures tah it doesn't seem possible.
It would've been smart though, even if the xbox next in it's console incarnation flopped, they'd still have the PC incarnation of xbox next that IMO has a lot of chance to succeed. As the money is after all in software, not hardware, I think that the PC would be able to back up the success of MS as a games entertainment company.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I think xbox next will come with recordable DVD, that it will also function as a video recorder, maybe without a HDD. No ability to play or record high definition pre recorded material
PS3 will come with a non-recordable BluRay, with the ability to play back high def material, but not to record anything.
Which one would be more lucrative as an "added bonus" like DVD play this gen.

Why do they need to raise the cost of a console with such a useless bonus in watered-down PSX-style without HDD? Offering different types at launch is also unlikely because of cost problem.

I't just that in my "vision" MS will have DVD RW so that you don't need a HDD, you'd store the "patches", game saves and extra levels and all that stuff to the game disc, that has an own recordable "partition" in addition to the game code and data.
That's just my thoughts, based solely on fantasy

 

[wco81]

Longhorn is suppose to have all kinds of DRM isn't it? Some people may not bother to upgrade to Longhorn for this reason.

And how reliable are DVD-RW discs? Can you be sure that anything you write over and over again will retain the data for later access?

It seems it would be difficult in late 2005 to include a blue-laser drive economically in a console. But could DVD-9 be sufficient for games in the next few years, even if they support HDTV modes?

HDTV adoption is picking up and expected to accelerate in the next 5 years. So it could be advantageous to have HDTV movie playback in a console, provided that selection and prices of Blu-Ray discs are attractive. If the selection is limited and you're paying say $30 or $40 for a Blue-Ray release compared to $20 for a DVD release, Blu-Ray won't have much of an appeal to gamers, even to many who have HDTV sets.

Unless you have Netflix type of services stocking Blue-ray movies for rent.