360, PS3 or Wii

[Draug]

Originally Posted by ernie

Also, from everything I've read HD-DVD is often providing a better picture than Blu-Ray. HD-DVD is currently winning the "buzz" battle. Who knows if they win the war. BUt I do know that if a standalone Blu-ray player costs $1000 and a PS3 which has a player and many other uses only costs $700, well then the Blu-ray drive quality in the PS3 is not likely to be good.

I've actually read on AVS that the PS3 is better than the standalone players.

It is definately better than the equivalent HD-DVD player you can get with the 360. The 360 HD-DVD cant even do HDMI; you have to go through component.

I cant get into HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray... I havent A/B testing them yet. I dont know anyone that has a standalone HD-DVD either, and I'm not buying one for now, so it will be a long time till I can A/B test the two formats.

[howard_the_duck]

I needs some advice from an Xbox 360 owner. I didn't want to start a new thread and I'm considering getting an Xbox 360 over the holidays.

I like playing games, online isn't a huge deal to me although I like the feature, I'll play by myself at times but also enjoy multiplayer.

What is the main difference between the Core system and Premium system? I know one has the 20 gig hard drive compared to 60......but as far as performance and graphics, is there any difference? I'm looking to cut the cost initially and am considering getting the core system alone.

Any recommendations?

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by howard_the_duck

I needs some advice from an Xbox 360 owner. I didn't want to start a new thread and I'm considering getting an Xbox 360 over the holidays.

I like playing games, online isn't a huge deal to me although I like the feature, I'll play by myself at times but also enjoy multiplayer.

What is the main difference between the Core system and Premium system? I know one has the 20 gig hard drive compared to 60......but as far as performance and graphics, is there any difference? I'm looking to cut the cost initially and am considering getting the core system alone.

Any recommendations?

There's no difference in performance. The only difference is the Core doesnt have a hard drive and has a wired controller while the Premium has a 20 gig hard drive, wireless controller, headset, HD compatable cable, and ethernet cable.

[howard_the_duck]

Originally Posted by Inferno

There's no difference in performance. The only difference is the Core doesnt have a hard drive and has a wired controller while the Premium has a 20 gig hard drive, wireless controller, headset, HD compatable cable, and ethernet cable.

Having hard drive vs. no hard drive.....will it be a big deal not to have the hard drive? If I'm interested in the system purely for playing games, would I miss the hard drive?

Thanks.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by howard_the_duck

Having hard drive vs. no hard drive.....will it be a big deal not to have the hard drive? If I'm interested in the system purely for playing games, would I miss the hard drive?

Thanks.

Only if you dont care about saving your game progress or if you just want to get the 64 MB memory unit. You can also buy the hard drive seperately but it ends up costing more in the end than just getting a premium pack.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by Draug

I've actually read on AVS that the PS3 is better than the standalone players.

If it is (I've read different on the brand new ones) it won't be long before it is a bargain basement player.

It is definately better than the equivalent HD-DVD player you can get with the 360. The 360 HD-DVD cant even do HDMI; you have to go through component.

which is why Microsoft didn't include a HD-DVD player on their console. they felt it unnecessary to inflate the cost of the console for what will end up being a below average component.

Stand alone HD-DVD players are less than half the cost of a stand alone Blu-Ray and a coupe hundred less than a PS3.

I cant get into HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray... I havent A/B testing them yet. I dont know anyone that has a standalone HD-DVD either, and I'm not buying one for now, so it will be a long time till I can A/B test the two formats.

I haven't either but from what I read the new HD-DVD drives are providing better picture and storage capacity is not a factor as the movies released thus far are all under 25 GB (single layer Blue-Ray is 25GB capacity and standard dual layer HD-DVD is 30 GB). In fact for "Training Day" Warner Bros. dropped some audio on the Blu-Ray release due to the storage issues.

Check out http://www.highdefdigest.com/feature...omparison.html

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

Here is a question...what is stopping MS and Sony from developing a comparable controller to the Wii (patents, straight out engineering challenges)? And I am not talking about the 6 axis crap that came with the PS3, but a truly comparable controller?

IF Xbox 360/PS3 had such a controller and developers were able to create titles for it, where would that leave the Wii?

Patents. Nintendo is actually being sued right now because some TV remote company has a patent for "trigger" like buttons on the bottom of rectangular remote controls.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by howard_the_duck

Having hard drive vs. no hard drive.....will it be a big deal not to have the hard drive? If I'm interested in the system purely for playing games, would I miss the hard drive?

Thanks.

As mentioned it's good for saving games. I believe for many sports games the franchise modes can take up to 6 MB per save. You'll run out of room fairly fast if you have a few franchises on a few games.

Other than that you can burn music to it and download demos etc.

If those things don't interest you and saving to a memory card doesn't bother you I'd save the money and put it towards an external harddrive. You can store your music and pictures and attach it using one of the uSB ports on the 360. You can stream directly from that external drive using media player on the 360.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Patents. Nintendo is actually being sued right now because some TV remote company has a patent for "trigger" like buttons on the bottom of rectangular remote controls.

It's actually kind of a mouse thing for computer. They allege that the Wii-mote is impeding their sales. Which is complete crap. Wii-mote isn't used for computer. It could be hacked to be used with a computer, but it's not the intended purpose.

Probably will end up in Nintendo throwing them a sack of money and it'll go away.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

Here is a question...what is stopping MS and Sony from developing a comparable controller to the Wii (patents, straight out engineering challenges)? And I am not talking about the 6 axis crap that came with the PS3, but a truly comparable controller?

They'd have to develop the controller and games for it simultaneously since if you release one without the other no one would buy it. And then you've got to convince people who have the system to buy even more controllers. And if you don't convince enough people to buy those controllers then companies aren't going to see a business case for producing games that utilize the wii like controllers.

Companies like EA aren't going to produce a new controller version of their games when they know that they'd sell more by producing their games for the original controller since the userbase would be larger. Top games produced by third party companies would not use the new controller for this reason. So you'd have some first party companies producing games for the new controller and you'd have third party companies producing niche games for it in an attempt to differentiate themselves from bigger companies.

Maybe if MS released Halo3 so that it required the new controller then it would have a chance to compete but special controllers have never been a big success.

[Inferno]

Gamespot did a graphics test between the 360 and PS3 for eight games and the 360 came out on top on most of the tests. But of course PS3 just came out so they eventually could get better than the 360.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6162742/index.html

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by kermitology

Probably smiling. You know that they're looking to change the gaming market, and so far they're doing that. The next system that Nintendo comes out with will certainly have HD output. By that time HD will be standard.

I don't have an HD TV so I don't see why I would get a 360 or a PS3 right now.

You want proof that Nintendo has got the market they were looking for? I haven't bought a system since SNES. I'll be buying a Wii as soon as I can get my hands on one.

And they've got the female market too... I friggin camped out for one of these things! In Calgary. In December. OVERNIGHT!!!!

[Peanut]

And, maybe this question is totally uninformed, but wouldn't it be just as easy for Nintendo to bring their graphics to PS3/Xbox level as it would be for PS3/Xbox to develop a Wii-type controller? Especially considering all the patent issues?

[ernie]

On Wii graphic capability...the new Zelda is an absolutely gorgeous games and essentially would run just as well and look just as great on the gamecube as it was built on the gamecube. The new Zelda uses only a fraction of what the Wii is capable of.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Peanut

And, maybe this question is totally uninformed, but wouldn't it be just as easy for Nintendo to bring their graphics to PS3/Xbox level as it would be for PS3/Xbox to develop a Wii-type controller? Especially considering all the patent issues?

But it's not cost effective. The PS3 and the Xbox 360 all lose a tremendous amount of money on each console sale, they recoup those costs by selling you games. Nintendo's philosophy is to break even or make money on all systems while keeping them affordable in order to expand the user base of videogamers.

In any case it's not even really a case of proprietary technology, the PS3, XBox, and Wii's internals are all basically designed by either IBM, ATi, or Nvidia or any combination of those anyway. The PS3 is basically like 9 IBM PowerPCs running together. Nintendo just chooses the higher yield cheaper parts to keep costs down. Nintendo's president said the graphics race was going nowhere and you're going to get to a point very soon where everything is near photo-realism and then what really matters is the fun element and more importantly, the user base of gamers who buy your games and systems so it was more important for them to build on that...try to get non-gamers to try out games.

In any case, all the reports of the Wii's lesser graphical capabilities are overexaggerated and the system is underrated. Games on it can look absolutely amazing. Check out Resident Evil 3 on the Gamecube and realize that the Wii is capable of much more. It's just the current generation or the packaged in game (Wii Sports) being rudimentary looking right now. Plus the Wii doesn't have HD so it doesn't need to pump out ultra high resolutions so it can do a lot of great things on screen without hitting that bottleneck.

[CarlW]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

In any case, all the reports of the Wii's lesser graphical capabilities are overexaggerated and the system is underrated. Games on it can look absolutely amazing. Check out Resident Evil 3 on the Gamecube and realize that the Wii is capable of much more. It's just the current generation or the packaged in game (Wii Sports) being rudimentary looking right now. Plus the Wii doesn't have HD so it doesn't need to pump out ultra high resolutions so it can do a lot of great things on screen without hitting that bottleneck.

I think you mean RE:4, and that was the best graphics of any game the last generation on any system. The Wii is also more powerful graphically then the Cube so the games can look better then RE:4 if the developers but only try. The problem here is even on the GameCube, how long did it take for a game that looked as good as RE:4 that was able to take advantage of the graphical power of the Cube? a damn long time, and unfortunately it'll be the same way with the Wii. I also don't think that the developers are even trying to optomize graphics for their Wii games (Except Nintendo but they don't count ), it is almost like developers know that graphical expectations for a Wii game are low, so lets just put in a half-arsed effort into that department, though i'm sure it probably also saves on development costs for games.

[CubicleGeek]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

The Wii (as well as the Xbox 360) will never match the PS3 in terms of graphics resolution or polygon pumping capability...but the games can just as easily be as complex, challenging, or simply just fun or even moreso in terms of actual design and gameplay. I know of a lot of people that enjoy something like NHL '95 as much as they would '05.

I agree with everything you said except the above in bold. The architectures of the systems are far too different to ascertain that at this point in time. Developers have even been quoted as saying that they view both the XBox 360 and PS3 as equals in hardware capability. Furthermore, a comparison of cross-platform games seem to suggest, for this generation of games, a slight edge in favor of the XBox 360. Reference this article on Gamespot.

One might argue that these games are first gen games and don't tap the full potential of the PS3, but it would be naive to assume that after one year, the 360 has been pushed to the limit. I would wait at least one full year to see where the PS3 sits before making any conclusions. I actually imagine they are more equal than either sides of the camp are willing to admit. What's going to decide the winner for this generation will be the titles.

[Teh_Bandwagoner]

Originally Posted by 20-12-22

Next thing youll tell me is that a game on a cartridge can whole alot of data.

What is this? 1995? Last time I checked, fitting a large amount of data on something like a cartridge wasn't an issue. It's simply no longer a standard in gaming.

P.S. I just noticed the syntax of the quote. Points lost for grammar! lol... ... ... I'm a geek...