Developer: PS3, 360 graphics "impossible to tell apart"

Rog27,
You have issues, man.

Why the F can't fanboys just chill the hell out for once. If you can only afford to buy one next-gen system, what is the rational for bashing the ones you've decided to not buy? Unless you're on the company's payroll, you're an idiot to dismiss playing games on other consoles just because you've decided to hate what you don't have. Whatever happend to being excited for the games? I don't own a PS2 (not sure why I never got one), but it has a ton of cool games that I'd love to play at some point. I own an Xbox which also has a bunch of fun games. I own a PSP...ok, well there aren't really any fun games that I've found for PSP unless I count homebrew and emulation. I don't have a gamecube either, but I love Nintendo franchise games and love playing Mario Kart on my friend's gamecube.

But really, no one wins a prize for having the system they root for coming out on top. Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo is not going to send you a trophy because you picked the system that sold the most. Play games because games are fun to be played no matter what brand name is on the chunk of metal and plastic that you are running in your living room. Fanboys should instead embrace the competition between console makers because that is exactly what pushes this industry forward. Without that competition, this industry wouldn't be anywhere close to where it is today.

/end rant

Bandit,
Not to preach these specs as gospel truth but if the ps3 does ship with the xdr ram opreating at 3.2 ghz how well can this finesse vs. raw power arguement hold water.

Oh and please educate me, because I was under the impression that floating point calculations are best for very complicated specialized physics engine and AI engine, animations, simulations... etc. and integer calculations are more for "general purpose" use. It would be funny of sony to spend 3 billion dollars and 5 years of research only to make thier system extremely powerful in a rather useless feature.

Bandit,

Hold on, are you saying the framebuffer on PS3 has to go through main memory? That last step GPU->RAM has me confused. All of the compositing and whatnot should happen in graphics memory right? Both the 360 and PS3 should behave this way. From my understanding, the benefit of the cache on the 360 is that geometry and textures generated procedurally don't have to go back to main memory until they are needed; they can just sit in the cache until the GPU is ready. My argument is that the PS3 can do the same thing by using the local store on an SPE to hold procedurally generated content so that it never needs to touch main memory either.

My theoretical diagram would look like this:

Disc-->RAM-->Cache-->CPU-->SPE-->SPE LS-->GPU-->G RAM-->Output

I've never written a game using modern graphics hardware though, so I could be mistaken about how this all works.

xbox has more power than the ps2 yet the ps2 sold more consoles
So why can't the 360 do the same?
It's about the games and since Halo 3 is going to be on a box......ps3 means nada to me

It's all about the games in the long run.

if i want bloe ray i will get one when they are 49.99 at wal-mart or a internet store. I NEVER used my xbox for movies, not one time have I. I do play movies on my 360 through my PC's > xbox 360 > hdtv
The media center feature is really nice!

ok i will put my input in. first some people were stuck on the whole 1080i vs 1080 p and what not, i am using 720p with my 360 and the grap[hics are just nuts. 1080i or p is only good for a big screen wide screen tv with a 16:9 ratio moist smaller tvs look better in 4:3 rtio hence the whole 720p i am running which looks better than 1080i on my tv.

now about the systems my persnal feeling is i want to wait and see the set price of the ps3 and the online gaming befor i run out and buy one. I bought my 360 after i did the same, playing others 360 and playing them at stores befor i went ahead and bought it. I am pleased and siuprised by my 360. i feel its better than most expected and sweet as hell, the online always on is great specially when i tewnd to chat wit coupkle of my biys while we play seperate games or what not. The streaming of media thru my console from my local network is awsome and playing my music while playing anygame is also a plus. overall the 360 has been worth every penny i have spent on it. the wireless controllers work great and have a huge range. I have had no console issues or crashes no lock ups or anything.

so i am anxiuos to see the ps3 beside my 360 playing the same game like i did with my xbox and ps2 befor i will say one is better than the other. now to say the ps3 will murder the 360 is unfounded. the 360 is a solid system with a great online dashboard service. if u have not experienced any more than playing a 360 for a few you have not seen the power of the 360 and what it can do other than gaming.

yes some games look better than others but they all look markedly better in hd, even halo2 is backwards compatible in hd and looks much better so if u don't play the 360 or ps3 in hd u will not get the full effect of the graphics.

biggest hurdle for ps3 right now is the late start and the price. i think 2 much higher than the 360 and it will not do as well as many people specially myself who got the 360 first with the intentions of getting the ps3 as well are now feeling like it might not be worth it specially since the diff is minimal unlike the diff with the ps2 qand xbox which supprised me more nthan anything. also all the ps2 fanboys played the ps2 for ever wioth out ever touching a xbox and seing it was more powerfull so i think power and graphics at this level is mute. the key is price. if its 600 bucks forget it but 400 with a harddrive like the 360 is more do able. thats my feeling like or not but i am a gamer. i have always had every system and can sit here and tell you the 360 is sweet, the ps3 will be just as sweet but will it be worth it to pay 600 and what about the online? i hope to hear about that at e3 because thats what will break the camels back, if the online does not match xbox's than the ps3 will be a failure specially fi its in the 600 range. i am done comparing i am ready to play. i ahve my 360 and it was worth it, lets see what the ps3 looks like when we can touch one and see for ourselves. i tend to not belive eiothe rmicrosoft or sony but what i see with my own eyes

In the end the ps3 will win the console race (due to user loyalty) but MC will gain ground from its previous console. I also think that by the end of the frist year of the ps3 realese it will have caught up with the 2 year sales of the 360. But in the gaming race pc will win out every time.

#49

CELL wasnt not developed solely for PS3.

Thats the reason why its powerful in a rather useless feature.

you think they would spend 3 million in research to develop for PS3 just so they can win the console war?

Hmmm what would be really cool, if Sony would employee TSRI aka ( The Software Revolution, Inc. ) Port Linux / KDE & X to PS3, take about 3 to 6 months, then Port open office to PS3, etc. Then we can throw away our computers, monitors, fax machines, basiclly use PS3, ALL in one appliance system, games, ETC...

Really each console is set up differently and unless you have an understanding of the compiler and the best ways to use each system's array of chips and bandwidth then those guys are right. Smart code doesn't rely on a cpu does it? You won't see too much of a difference. It is the same for the Pc market. I mean how come ATI or Nvidia are not the crowned king of graphics? What keeps them even? Will their ever be a Graphics card that truely out does the competitor to the point you could say hey no one should ever buy from any one else. Yes we all love our graphic porn but it's all about looks isn't it? Most people will be looking at these graphics thur STD TVs at really high frame rates(normal)
The faster cpu and gpu for the xbox360 and the ps3 will only truely benifit HD resolutions. Thats about it... unless one company has embedded a secret function that will let them do some thing thatnoone else has ever seen... Don't expect too much of a difference... except for shader tricks. I look at it like this... Game AI will always be dumb... To me any way... No form of horse power makes up for dumb AI... And I don't see any one putting these games systems up against any chess chanpions yet ethier. No matter how much of a branch prediction you give it. The extra stuff the Xbox 360 can do graphicly really does not matter... seeing different dirt 4 feet away does not excite me... Seeing a generated tree does not excite me. Seeing a character using 200,000-500,000 polygons at 30 fps excites me. Thats why I'm a normal map junkie. It's the closes thing we'll see to that. Like some one said above equations do make things some what faster but the guy fails to see artistic geometry always finds a way to break free of an equations limits. This means that the same equations you speak up will have limits that will eventualy get boring, which is the same kind of boring that would let you switch out master cheif for a quake or doom character becuase of it's boring artistic direction.

The only thing that will make one system look better than the other one is the Programmer's god like understanding of the systems structure, a realistic goal in terms of game play and art resource management, and kick ass artist and game designers.
That is in a essecnce what made the Ps2 the system to own. They simply had all of the best artist and programmer's grinding away on the PS2. Had Halo been the as tight as the concept art which birthed the visuals then maybe more poeple would have been in the xbox group but these people fail to realise you can over extend your abilities.... I guess the main problem is these games are not written for the system that they are played on and they are mostly code ports with a few tweaks to make it run, which is classic Com SCI undergrade work...LOL Maybe it's the publisher's fualt or maybe the programmer doesn't feel the need to even try to harness the power if the game doesn't need it.

Specs aside. Nothing should beat a Quad SLI nvidia or crossfire card setup. If used correctly It could spawn GPUs thats completely handles all visuals from frame buffer to raytraceing VFXs thur shaders to physics. Hey but we will see Console games that reach this bar and maybe even better thur tricks because does it really matter how they get to the out come as long as they get there with a similar display.

You can not compare a program on two different platforms and expect a winner just from a "port".
The true test will be to see what is possible on a engine designed for that console by the same developers or ethier the cream of the crop from all platforms.

We all have to adit the PS2 was not even surpose to be close to god of war... MGS2-3, and the list goes on... Game desing requires cattering to what you have not would you would like to have. The PS3 and Xbox360 are just like you next PC card update... it'll get you some more effects and a faster frame rate in higher resolutions at a really high price.

I mean If your really hardcore some one write Dell and tell them to buy SNK and tell them to make the NEO GEO InfinitI

specs
1 High MHZ SIMD cpu
Quad core "free" cpu liquid cooled with 6 gigs of ram just incase you want to draw your wrinkle on an in game model with polygon counts over two million
Quad core GPU with 2 gigs of ram
16 core ray tracing shader beast
Dual core Physics chips which has access to the above.
High speed Mimic AI chip that copies your style of play to use you own moves on you in game via memory structuring... with game AI sculpting of course.

A few Ram harddrive with raid on it. Combo Blueray and Hd drives and burners... will never happen. No forget that Solid state media thats small and holds 300 gigs. Then any extra chips can be added for ai or what ever. Partial system upgrade are thur the games them selves.

The new wifi standard with 600 megs thur the air...

Of course a steel battilion style controller for the hard core and a Wii controller rip off....

Now thats next gen to me... If your a power and graphics hore... But hey give me some great art and game play and I'm happy for a long time... I think we can all agree on that so it really ins't going to matter which systems is hard core more powerful because they will all be with in reach of each other being that known manufactures are desiging these chips.

To answer Jons question first. I always lump the "system" ram and the Vram into one block as the GPU will need the majority of the bandwidth anyway, and not a distinctive block like the 360. Basically there is very little reason to seperate the Vram from the system ram except in reference to what the CPU can access. The Ps3 gpu does not have the ability to pull from the cache of cell. The local store on the spes are really just the cache with each spe having a restricted DMA controller with only allows access to system RAM.

Floating is great for last generation and before it when polygon count was king. Cell was orignally developed in an era where advanced shading do not exist with normal, specular, parralax, and bump mapping and Pixel Shader 3.0. Sony realized they would need advanced shading software and compliant hardware rather than a FLOP beast. Which is why Nvidia came onto the scene with Sony only 2 years ago. The original intent was to have at least 2 cell processors to off-load between cpu and gpu functions, however software has changed drastically, become more sophiscated especially in the gaming arena.

You are correct the OLD way of physics, animations, AI, and graphics were heavily Flop dependent. However the "new" focuses much more on interactivity between these elements and "situation" AI, physics, animations.

Example. In AI character automatically knows that hitting a bookshelf will knock the contents off the top of the shelf.

Player places object of desire on top shelf of book case, AI sees objects, generates animation to topple bookshelf to recieve object. And this act is completely unscripted and natural, down to the unique animation used. Thats what "true" next gen gaming is, combining the elements to make a realistic world. Im not saying the PS3 cant do it. Im saying the design of the 360 at this point appears to be much better suited for these "new" methods of coding, at the cost of being ill suited for current methods. Until games are coding in this method, which is very expensive to develop initially however once coded, makes game design literally plug and play.

personally i think the xbox 360 was a big dissappointment, as will be the PS3. Power doesnt mean anything, it never did. Its all about gameplay. So Sony and MS can lose millions and billions on there consoles all they want, they can hype them up to kindomcome for all i care. MS first party games aren't all that gr8, sony are startin to get the hang of makin enjoyable games, but im 19 and can not aford a HD tv just to get the most out of the graphics. All this power in the PS3 and xbox 360 to produce visualls i cant even see, its a bit of a waste. I have a decent PC and will be gettin Wii later this year and by this all my gaming needs will be satisfied. The PS3 and 360 are just more expensive boxes than the previous generations.
I wounder how long the public will keep buying the same machines.

With neither the Xbox 360 nor the PlayStation 3 having that much of a graphical advantage over the other, it's really going to come down to which select several exclusive Triple A games you want, that differentiates the buyers and whose controller better suits your needs. It's becoming more and more possible for Nintendo to win with the Wii, because it's a totally different experience. I've made my own polls as Joystiq and other sites have, and more people plan to buy Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii or PS3 and Wii, than PS3 and Xbox 360. It's going to be interesting to see who wins the war.
Paul Gale
1up.com

Bandit,
Dude your the bomb you have all these ps3 fanboys going nuts.Iam sure what you say is true becuase it explains everything and exposes the weaknesses of the ps3 and xbox 360.One question remains though. What does the Ps3 have now?Online advantage?NO.Controller?NO.graphics?NO.Games at launch?Please by that time 360 will have amazing games,and sony will be caught in microsofts situation NOT enough games.STRONG BRAND NAME?YES

1080i is really just 540i, while 720p really is 720p. 480p is 480p, but 480i is actually only 240i.

If you understood what I just wrote, bravo. The point is that I'm sick of people yammering about high definition and then saying 1080i is better than 720p. It is not. 720p is 720x60, while 1080i is 540x30/540x30 interlaced. This means that in any given millisecond, on a 720p display you're seeing 720 lines of resolution, while in that same millisecond on a 1080i display, you're only seeing 540 lines of resolution, interlaced.

You DO NOT want to run games at 1080i. I know the number is "bigger" when you look at it, but if they were being honest, they'd call it 540i instead of 1080i. 720p is truly high definition and progressive scan. What's the point to having high definition and then running it in a jaggy interlaced scan format? Would you run your computer on a monitor that displays it in 1280x1024 INTERLACED?

1080i is fine for watching Jay Leno on HDTV, but movies, videogames and high-action TV shows demand progressive scan, not interlaced. Run your XBox 360 and PS3 in 720p, instead of 1080i. Trust me. It's better. There's a reason FOX chose 720p as their HDTV format: It handles high-speed sports action better.

As for the PS3 running in 1080p... I'll believe it when I see it. It will be a pain to make games that run at that resolution with any kind of reliable frame rate on a console system, and since about 10% of HDTV owners even have the capability to display 1080p, the signal would be downconverted to 1080i or 720p on the other 90%... And that's only among HDTV owners. The majority of my customers tell me they haven't jumped to HDTV yet.

And finally, as to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, I can tell you that customers are lukewarm when it comes to these new formats. The overwhelming sentiment is that Joe "Non Videophile" Consumer initially felt cheated when he was told that he had to ditch VHS to switch to DVD, and among these people there are STILL PEOPLE COPYING THEIR VHS COLLECTION TO DVD. Let me repeat that: Consumers are copying LOW QUALITY VHS to DVD so they can watch the videos they purchased before DVD became dominant.

I still get customers who DO NOT OWN A DVD PLAYER YET and several DVD player owners who REFUSE to purchase widescreen or anamorphic videos, and the industry expects these people to drop DVD for HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? It's ridiculous. They won't. They just bought their newest DVD player last year, and many of them don't own televisions that can display high-def.

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are niche technologies. They will fade, but a few loyalists will cling to them, like they clung to their LASERDISC players and MINIDISC devices. The public at large will ignore them.

My advice? Purchase a DVD player that upconverts to 720p/1080i for now. That's what I'm using, and that's more than enough right now. It will make your HDTV (if you have one) worth while until the next format steps up and replaces HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I'm betting on the holographic storage technology to break through, myself.

PS3 will be a late-to-market version of the Xbox 360, with a few exclusives.

"The graphics are the same on both the 360 and PS3..." NO CRAP! You ean't compare graphics for the top next gen machines on the same game. You have to look at exclusives, when Developers concentrate on one system and that system only!

I'm not an expert as the only computer/consoles I ever owned was a Commodre 64 (Ahhh good old Last Ninja 3), a woody old Atari 2600, & a PS1.

Though I am biased towards Playstaion I will admit I see no difference performance-wise between the Xbox 360 & the PS3. Anyone who thinks otherwise is seriously deluded. Actually I think the Xbox 360 is a cracking console & is worthy of a place in my living room, thats why I will be buying one next year when Halo 3 comes out - Totally worth it!

For now though, as I have spent all my money on a HDTV & I can only afford to save for the PS3. Not because its better in any way than a 360, but simply because its got a Blu-Ray player, -ITS A CHEAP BLU-RAY PLAYER & thats it!

I think this next console war is going to be very close betwen Xbox & Playstation & both deserve to do well. The next few years are going to be very exciting :)

To answer steve's question as to what the Ps3 actually has...

The Ps3 has clear brand name advantage, and the the fact that At least initially its a relatively simple process to put games out for the Ps3 as long as you dont get fancy with it. As such using similar code, the PS3 has a slight advantage in terms of raw power, and a considerable one in terms of gpu bandwidth. HOWEVER if each system is actually coded properly in the way they are designed the 360 is an extremely capable machine and will streamline software and middleware processes that will be common place in 2-3 years in the game industry. On the other side of the coin is the tremendous floating point power of the Ps3 which cannot and should not be ignored. The Ps3 will do some REALLY REALLY REALLY cool looking stuff. Unfortunately at the end of the day the only thing it will be is something to look at rather than interact with. at least by comparison to a properly coded 360 game.

basically my take is this. Ps3 games will look insanely cool but play like current gen games

360 games will look just as good but not as fancy as its processing power will actually be used to make the games more indepth, fun, and interactive.
basically given what I have seen and what the 360 is capable of, its a better GAME machine

microsoft sent me a trophy......

Keyword being "screenshots." I wonder which vesion will run smoother with less freezing, less/no screen tear/v-sync issues, etc. Screenshots are one thing, in-game is something else entirely.

None of these spec arguments really matter much in the long run. Without fun games, consoles are nothing more than expensive door stops, no matter how powerful the console might be. Furthermore, what gives a game it's actual "fun factor" has very little to do with cutting-edge graphics and framerate performance(NES Zelda anyone?)

#41. Rog27. i would love to know where it is that you get the info where as the PS3 will have better framerates? is it because kutaragi said that the PS3 will be able to do 120FPS or do you have real info?

and about the rest................well it was just a fanboy rant anyways, so no comment there.

Looks like bandit did his homework. I agree that the graphics will be equally powerful, perhaps the physics processing power will be different but only time can tell. It's true that marketing will have much to do with it.. many people I know simply make their preference based on allegiance. Bandit, it looks like somebody did their homework...

regarding badits posts,

Sorry.. but maybe some readers get confused.
to clarify:
dont talk about ram as would every ram be the same. It has different purposes and has different speeds. To the 1xram on xbox360 and 3times on ps3.. how often do you think a texture or game model has to be loaded? i guess only once per level.
regarding pure speed the memory througput (graphics side) of both system is the same. but here comes the difference: textures etc are loaded into vram(ps3) and normal memmory at xbox from there ->gpu->edram (xbox) /vram(ps3) - the xbox360 has a big advatage here by using embedded ram. but nothing hinders nvidia to do the same..but i guess they had their reasons not to do so (eg. heat on gpu-chip..). The xbox on the other side has the big problem that the memory is shared, so the gpu/cpu have to share the badwidth. The ps3 has two memory pipes each for a processing unit. This will more than acommondate the edram benefit.
I guess the ps3 will feature more eye candy than the xbox360. It comes, if its true ;), a year later. - lets say nvidia an ati are sharing the perfomance crown. But compare their actual solution with those they had a year ago!
To the "the ps3 will be hard to code for" statements: yep, but so is the ps2. There are already middle-ware solutions.
The procedural shader stuff reminds me of a statement sony gave at the release of ps2 where developers complaint the tiny 4MiB graphics memory: "compute textures in realtime", they said.

regards, gsus

Edging out in graphics and content slightly is actually very very very important for all of you who naysay. Here's why: Let's say a multiplatform game comes out on all systems. It's the exact same game across the board, execpt it's just a little tiny bit better on one system, and has room for one more level. Let's also assume you own every conceivable system that could play it. Which would you buy? You'd probably get the one with the most things on it. That's why BD and a smallish edge in power is important. A percent of every game you buy goes back to the maker.

A dev gets about the same ammount for every game sold, so they can really care less about which system it sells best for in a multiplatform environment. So where's the motivation for the extra spitshine for one specific console? Simple: $$. If either company pays for extras, they will get exclusive content. Sony just happens to have more room for this because of disc space, but it's all pointless unless they pay for the extras to be made. This point is almost null because of online downloading and HDD space. However, with Sony to supposedly ship the PS3 with 60 GB as opposed to the 360s 20, well.. another point for Sony I guess.

Also: as far as both systems being about the same visually, yup. The difference in power won't be evidenced in extra things, just better done effects on one system. One system's shadows may be a bit more accurate than the others'. That's probably where the power will go. Or a few extra particles on screen, or a bit better lighting.. but nothing you will actually notice unless you are looking for it.

However, which would you buy at the end of the day? The one with the good enough shadows, or the one that has slightly better shadows that you can't really tell?

To ZeroCorpse's comment #64
" 1080i is really just 540i, while 720p really is 720p. 480p is 480p, but 480i is actually only 240i."

I assume you mean 1080i is really 540p, not 540i. But even this is misleading and incorrect. The fact that these resulotions are represented by their number of lines is a throw back to CRT displays when an electron gun actually "scanned" across a line, meaning horizontal resolution was meaningless.
In digital displays which can display 1080i, horizontal resolution is meaningful as a single picture element on the screen can be stimulated.
The actualy resolution of 1080i is 1920x540, vs 720p's resolution of 1080x720. Multiply those numbers together and you will see that even with interlacing taken into account, 1080i actually has a higher resolution. The interpolation which occurs in the de-interlacer only occurs vertically, not horizontally.

Kamalot you suck. I had to stop at your statment and make a comment.

QUOTE:So, if the graphics are the same, and one is available TODAY what are we waiting for? You won't be able to get a PS3 until next year since they will be more scarce than the 360 was last year.

ARE YOU STUPID, [If they have the same graphics and one is out...]!?!?! [... you might as well get the one that is out]. Is that somthing like what you said. Are an idiot? HELL NO! You aound like a desprate MS employee. Did you have a hand in making the 360?

If you buy a 360 you have to settle for an HD-DVD attachment, you have to settle for 1 or 2 (at the most) quality RPGs, Developers who at this point could be alot more convincing with the graphics ability of 360 but won't due to laziness and no compatition.

Also you say that PS3 is following microsoft but there are featurs that were leaked back in January or February for PS3's network that Microsoft is now trying to put into XBOXLive. Example 1: Video conferencing. Also why did MS not put the HD-DVD drive into the system (besides the fact that they suck). HD-DVD would have already been a hit, but MS wants to make more money off of you idots by selling one half of the system at a time.

If you let microsoft take over gaming, the industry will be packed with lazy developers who need miscrosoft's "helpful" components to get anything done. That's more overhead in the programming, creating less games that take full advantage of a system.

Don't get me wrong we need MS, because sony will do us dirty too. So I like you 360 guys because that keeps SONY and their delevopers honest. They have to deliver or MS could take the whole thing. Don't want that to happen, just want it to be possible.

Good things come to those who wait...

Isn't the GPU in the PS3 a G71.
The G71 has a mayor disadvantage when it comes to Full HDR blending with AA as it can't do it, But they can allways find a way around that problem if they use the HDR type used in HL2:LC.
The XBox 360 GPU R500 has "Shader4.0" models i think. This makes it possible to use an unified arcitecture for Vertex and Pixel shaders. It can also render HDR with AA and the 10MB Framebuffer makes 2xAA possible with almost no performance hit.
As for the CPUs, if they make good enough softwarekits it should be easy to use more of the potential of them and since the softwarekits would improve all the time the games should look better after a few years for both the consoles.

Uncle Zev
:P

I've read all the comments here and laughed at quite a few but I wont this long.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned that MS noted that the 360 will be getting an HD-DVD upgrade unit or even future xbox360s will have it built in. Correct me I'm wrong on that, but anyone else? If so... That would give anoter reason for consumers to buy the XBOX360. That being said, I will mention that I laugh at the fact that any one person would believe that one game system could help make such a major boost to any one format media. If one truely has the money to spend on such a player or game system, they would most likely go for one that serves their means best. For example the PS2 and its ability to play DVDs. I bought one when they first came out (for games), and tried the whole DVD movie on it... It wasn't that long til I went out and bought a DVD player. Average families won't be using some game system to play their movies on. Thats nothing but a pure gimmick. The whole blue-ray is a minor selling point as far movie playability goes. Not saying anything bout the BlueRay in general, but just how Sony is trying to sell the PS3 off as the Blue-Ray jump starter... just as the PS2 was for the DVD. Anyways why would someone that didnt fully know what they were getting into, pay 500+ for a game system when they can pay the same amount for the actual player that looks... more professional (assuming this consumer has no intentions of using the system for gaming).

Rulother- exactly. People will get a PS3 for the games, and try out a few BD movies to see what they are like. If they are impressed, than they'll later on get a BD player. If not, they'll stick with DVDs or HD-DVD.

But saying that a console has nothing to do with formats.. that's not true. The fact is that once Sony sells out of their first few shipments (you know they will reguardless of what you, or anyone says), then there will be 6 million or so Blu-ray players out there. That's a large market to sell to, and that will attract more studios to publish their new movies on BD, and then there's more of a reason to get a BD player since there are more movies out. The PS3 is just a huge leapfrog to help out introduction. The fact that all PS3 games will be on BD is an added perk with the extra space and possible higher speeds (final drive speed yet to be announced). Not to mention the new coating that makes the games nearly scratchproof (FINALLY).

also, one last correction: go work in rental for a while and hear how many people use game systems as DVD players.. you'd be suprised. Also there are quite a few VHS fans still out and about.

"Edging out in graphics and content slightly is actually very very very important for all of you who naysay. Here's why: Let's say a multiplatform game comes out on all systems. It's the exact same game across the board, execpt it's just a little tiny bit better on one system, and has room for one more level."

That is the exact argument fans of the original Xbox made when comparing their preferred console to the PS2. Now they've completely reversed their position. The only advantages the 360 has, that I can see, is Xbox Live and being released a year earlier. That said, it is obviously taking MS at least a year to make a console that actually works (over a year, considering that the new, superior CPU won't be released until March of '07). I really hope the PS3 (or the Wii, for that matter) isn't as much a piece of garbage as the 360 has so far turned out to be. The Xbox was a good console. So far, the 360 is not. This is PS3's to win, unless they mess up as badly as Microsoft has.

It will take some incredibly gifted developers on ever level of development to use a good chunk of each system's potential. It has been stated by current industry leaders on how difficult it will be. I could go into a lot of depth but its all been said before.

Now for a "The more you know"

Complicated systems to program for is nothing new. The Sega Saturn was probably the most difficult system to utilize its potential. This played a large reason (larger than I think is given credit for) why it couldn't keep up with the PSX.

Yu Suzuki was quoted as saying"

"One very fast central processor would be preferable. I don't think that all programmers have the ability to program two CPUs - most can only get about one-and-a-half times the speed you can get from one SH-2. I think only one out of 100 programmers is good enough to get that kind of speed out of the Saturn."

I think the ease of developing quality games for the systems will prove to be more important than some think.

Also, its good to expect cutting edge in graphics but does anyone else think the competition between the 360 and PS3 is going to cut out a lot of the smaller (yet more innovative (aka willing to take risks)) companies?

I didn't read a single comment posted here.

Morons

And to all the Fanboys I'll be seeing at E3 next week I hope you all break your ankles and can't make it to the show. E3 was a lot better before they started letting you fools in.

Take your turbo-colorful D&D/Anime button ups and luscious man boobs and scram.

If you seriously think that this blue ray ^^^^ will come in and all of that you have another thing coming, NOBODY will pay $60 for a movie, and since all the games will be 20 - 30 more because thats how much it costs each disc it's just not worth it.. don't care bout the graphics all games on the ps3 that i know off except that crap metal gear solid is going to be on the 360 now anyway, let alone the 360's getting a HD-DVD drive soon..... and also if you beleive this 'free' online crap sony is pulling will be good or even better than the 360's think again.... Microsoft have been around the online world since the beginning, sony attempted it with the ps2 and it was crap, and i'm thinking it will be the same this time round as the poll they put out where asking people if they want what 360 features in it... AAAAHHHAHAH.... but when it gets down to it you geeky kids who keep talking about the tech crap need to get a life its a console who really gives a ^^^^ which one will be better... as long as i can blow someones head off i don't mind.

Bandit,

Please stop pretending you have expert knowledge of PS3's system architecture and spreading misinformation. I have read through your posts and can assure you that many of the points you make about memory bottlenecks and capabilities are not accurate. While you are correct about some macro-architecture details, you are incorrect about the limitations you are assuming for PS3. The IOIF interface is wickedly fast, memory bandwidth is comparable if not greater than the rendering path on Xbox360. Not only that, but you are incorrect about the dataflow on PS3. Display rendering bandwidth is actually higher than Xbox360, which is exactly what makes 1080p rendinging possible. You are also wrong about procedual texture and geometry generation capabilities on BOTH consoles. It is, in fact, easier to procedually generate data from the SPUs on PS3 than Xbox, the opposite of what you argue. Trust me, I know the PS3 micro and macro arch *very* well, I'm not going to say too much more out of value of my job, but your arguments are extremely biased. It's clear to me that you don't have that much knowledge of either system and are just sprouting technical jargon in an attempt to feel self important.

Ok by the name I placed for this post some might be surprised by my comments but here it goes...

I've done Game testing for EA and Microsoft (the Mass office.)
For EA I worked on the latest Fifa (which they actually made for ps3 as well but will redo because the world cup will be over when the console comes out)
I Love me Playstation, Always have and always will! BUT! I gotta say playing that game on both Dev Kits.... 360 took it! It's like building a muscle man and making him with HUGE arms and little scronie legs. Although he's got big arms, he's not the whole package. I think the Ms' strategy was to pull back on the extreme hardware improvement and instead try and make the components work well together..
Don?t get me wrong?. I?m still a PS2 guy. I like the exclusive titles on the PS better than on XB but as far as performance is concerned? Xbox 360