So GameDaily's got a
feature up about how they're cutting through the bull concerning the Revolution and PS3... but just how close are they
hitting to their bovine targets?Let's consider the first two statements to be "cut through" (which have, perhaps, the strongest arguments made against them): #1. "Sony Will Ship 4-7 Million PlayStation 3 Consoles This Year" (BS Meter: High), and #2. "PlayStation 3 Online Service to Mimic Xbox Live" (BS Meter: Medium).
#1. A Pioneer senior vice president expects 4-7 million PS3s to ship this year, but GD considers this a bullshot figure. Considering the history of consoles shortages at launch, especially from Sony, one can see how this statement's got the highest BS Meter level from GD of all. Good points are made about the conflict-of-interest with a competing Blu-ray manufacturer, but anyone-not-named Toshiba (or Microsoft) has gotta be behind the format they've invested a lot of money in already. For Pioneer, increasing the user base increases the demand for your product -- particularly when regular standalone Blu-ray drive speeds inevitably surpass those of the PS3, justifying your pricier (and, eventually in a different tier, cheaper) product. That's why people go out and buy standalone DVD players now and not usually PS2s to play DVD movies these days: to preserve their console investment for game-playing and to get a better movie player... that's not called a PlayStation.
#2. That SCEA e-mail survey regarding a Live-like online service for the PS3 gets shot down by GD, but only to a certain extent. Sony will try but find it's too far behind to match Live's feature set in the few months remaining before launch (whenever that is). Something approaching Live's functionality will supposedly be arranged, which will at least provide the most demanded features, such as a friends list and downloadable content, for Sony fans to latch onto. There may be something to this development theory, but the recent Sony purchase of the makers of SOCOM probably happened for a reason, so who knows what's possible?
Meanwhile, the strongest Rev statement--meaning, the one least likely to be BS--was accompanied by a GameDaily belief that Zelda: Twilight Princess would be "running on Revolution with the new features discussed a couple weeks ago." Not such a great prediction to make when Nintendo called the rumored TP use of the Revolution controller's unique features to be "pure speculation."
Without critiques of 360 hype, this might sound like an article better suited for a certain Fanboy blog, but you gotta remember that many mysteries surrounding the system were dealt with when Microsoft's latest gaming console launched in November. The veil remains unbroken on many aspects of the other two systems... for now.
