Video of the final PS3 dev kit and partial dashboard

The Wiimote is a gimmick, which should have been sold as an accessory for the GameCube.
But, no, it's much better to rake in new money for old hardware, under the pretext of innovation.

To the person who said they are playing Ninety Nine Nights, can someone explain why the highly anticipated title is getting craptacular reviews?

"gimmick"
1) an ingenious or novel mechanical device
2 an important feature that is not immediately apparent
3) an ingenious and usually new scheme or angle
4) a trick or device used to attract business or attention

Yep, the Wii controller may be a gimmick. It's definitely a "new scheme". Some would say it's "ingenious" and "important". And Nintendo is sure hoping it will "attract business".

But it seems like everyone uses the word in its negative connotation, "trick". This implies that a gimmick doesn't do what it is advertised to do. And so far, NO reviewer has said that the remote doesn't work. Nintendo says "Playing=Believing"... their whole marketing campaign is going to be built around people getting the controllers in their hands. If they deliver, the remote is going to be the best kind of gimmick out there: "an important feature that is not immediately apparent".

Could it fail? Sure. But so could Sony ditching the boomerang (which everybody thought was a great move) for the same-form controller that they've had for 10 years. The 360 controller has proved itself. I don't need a PS3 controller in my hands to know what it is going to feel like... and I'm less than impressed. Give the Wii controller some time; we'll see what kind of gimmick it really is.

As of writing this, there are only 49 posts, so anythin after #49 I didn't see haha.

@41 - Vidguy

Like someone else has posted, Its capacity and transfer speed that matter. HD-DVD has been out longer than Blu-Ray, the players are better, give it a few months. And cost of new technology is always expensive, people payed upwards of $1000 for a CD-Player in the 80s. As technology increases, Production costs will decrease. The cost issue will be minimal later.

@43 - jc

See the comment above this one. But, besides that. The current side to side comparison admits that the HD-DVD won out because of the player and the Disc maker, not the format. I'm going by this http://www.highdefdigest.com/feature_blurayvshddvd_firstcomparison.html . I'll go ahead and say I have no proof and my comment is just that... a comment, rather than criticize the critics.

@45 - Lord Meph

Yea, I'm an ass sometimes, sorry for those comments :)

"UMD is proprietary movie format #2 that failed miserably for Sony. #1 was Beta Max, which was superior to VHS, but nobody cared."

Sony was too rigid with Beta Max, they learned from their mistake there. The reason Beta Max failed is also the reason why I predict HD-DVD will fail.

"why don't you tell us all what is so superior about Blue Ray. Please, enlighten us."

Capacity, speed and support. Do the research yourself, I'm already making a wall of text.

"But innovation.. (The whole paragraph)"

Right. But innovation just doesn't come in gimmicks. So people can wave their hands around, big deal. Guess what, the Wii doesnt have HD. It's format (dvd, correct me if i'm wrong) Is slower and smaller than sony's. Where is the innovation in using old technology but adding a motion sensor? Nintendo is innovative in their game design, and IMO they are the best game company there is, but their hardware designs are just gimmicks. Of course, this is just me being burnt by nintendo gimmicks more than once, so I harbour resentment.

"The DS is not a gimmick, and the best selling titles on the system all use the stylus, so Ihve no idea where youre coming from with your statement about the touch-screen."

1# Nintendogs (7.37 million)
2# Animal Crossing: Wild World (4.66 million)
3# Mario Kart DS (4.64 million)
4# Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (4.1 million) [46]
5# New Super Mario Bros. (3.84 million)

This shouldn't need anymore explaination than... GIMMICK.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again... Nintendo should go the way of sega and drop the hardware.

@Aex (and Lord Meph, to a degree):
"Ok, UMD does suck. Sony tried something and failed at it, they aren't the first company to do that."

"UMD is proprietary movie format #2 that failed miserably for Sony. #1 was Beta Max, which was superior to VHS, but nobody cared."

Alright, movie format sure. But what about things like MemoryStick? It's proprietary Sony, and I think has craptacular market share compared to some of the other formats available, like SecureDigital.

What about the MiniDisc? Where did that ever end up?

Sony have a history of attempting to shove proprietary formats down the consumer's throat; and more and more often, it was simply to line their pockets with more money - either from charging more for having a monopoly, or for fees to 'license' the technology.

HAHAHAHAHA! THATS IT? TALK ABOUT WEAK. ALL THE PS3 IS A FASTER PS2. CAN'T WAIT TO PICK UP THIS. LOL. GO NINTENDO & MS!!

Aex says:
"1# Nintendogs (7.37 million)
2# Animal Crossing: Wild World (4.66 million)
3# Mario Kart DS (4.64 million)
4# Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (4.1 million) [46]
5# New Super Mario Bros. (3.84 million)

This shouldn't need anymore explaination than... GIMMICK."

hmmm ... i bet sony wishes the PSP was a gimmick with numbers like that.

"It's format (dvd, correct me if i'm wrong) Is slower and smaller than sony's."

It is a proprietary-formated DVD. But it's rumored to run at 16x, versus the PS3's rumored 2x BluRay.

Read Speeds
16x DVD 21.13MB/s http://www.videohelp.com/dvd
2x BluRay 72Mbps or 9MB/s http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/

Even if the Wii reads at 8x, it'll still be faster than the BluRay drive. I hate to see a 25GB game's load time, since we all know that PS3 will have games that size in a year ;)

I just fired up my ps2 again to take a look at its menu.....and, it's really easy to see the evolution from its menu to that of the psp and now ps3.....

The fun of this thread is that only one side knows what they're talking about, and I'm a fanboy of that side. The first person to guess right gets a cookie, but I won't tell you if you're right. You just have to claim the cookie for yourself, and if you claim it wrongly, I still won't say anthing.

Aex,

I gotta skate from work here very soon, so Ill keep it short.

IMO, speed and storage capacity are of minimal importance when it comes to movie viewing, especially when the differences between the 2 formats is trivial. If Blu Ray offerred higher resolution movies, or was cheaper, or had the vast majority of movie studio support, then that would be of signifigance, and I would be interested and excited about it.

As for games, storage capacity does not matter. Game design is what matters. Just look at the vast success that XBL and the DS currently enjoy.

People play games because they are fun. You cannot argue (well, you can if you want) that video games in general have begun to reach a level of saturation not seen since the early 80's, and we all know how that turned out.

Whether you have been burned by Nintendo before or not, I think they should be applauded for not just taking the "safe" path (which may not be so safe after all, according to both Sony and MS's profit margins over the past few years) and instead have decided to grow the market by introducing a completely new way of controlling games, a way that can attract new players from demographics that have generally avoided gaming.

Now this is all speculation, its yet to be seen whether this will be a successful strategy, but it makes it clear to me that Nintendo is the one company out of the big 3 that actually cares about preserving and growing the industry as a whole by introducing new innovations all the time. Some fail, some succeed. The ones that succeed are copied ad infinum by the competition, which in turn helps keep the entire industry fresh and strong. Which makes sense, since gaming is Nintendo's ONLY business.

To simplify the Wii's controls as just "waving your arms around" is either intentionally inflammatory, or ignorant (or both). Any true gamer can see the exciting new possibilies offerred by this new control scheme. All one needs to do is survey the buzz being generated by the development community to know that this latest "gimmick" is likely a winner.

Nice and short, Meph, nice and short. :P

@vidGuy

Rumors are rumors... Here is another site saying the Wii max speed is equiv to DVDx6 http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=8802

Wii's Optical Disc Drive

- Opitcal Disc Drive (ODD) supports single and dual layer Wii disks, discs eject with software or button and the maximum read speed is the equivalent of DVDx6.

Which according to your site:
6x CAV (avg. ~4x) read speed is max 7.93MB/s, Avg 5.284

Soo, yea... About your earlier post, I don't mean gimmick as it won't work, or it won't be fun. Look at the DS's gimmick, a stylus, it works fine, it is sometimes fun. But, look back at the top 5 selling games, You don't need a gimmick to make a good game. Nintendo, and fanboys, are saying that the Wiimote is what will make the nintendo system a revolutionary great system... When in fact, all it will be is a gimmick (a trick or device used to attract business or attention)

1# Nintendogs (7.37 million)(Touch Screen is primary control)
2# Animal Crossing: Wild World (4.66 million)
3# Mario Kart DS (4.64 million)
4# Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (4.1 million) [46](touch screen and mic)
5# New Super Mario Bros. (3.84 million)

All those games us the touch screen at some level with 2 of them using it as the main form. One of the games uses the microphone significantly. They all use the dual screens to varying effects.


Oh and FF3 is fully touch controlled.

Yup total Gimmick gamers only care about using a D-pad or analog...or maybe it is the fact that it is not the imupt that matters but how the game uses it and changing the input can someimtes force developers to take a different slant on games and how they are played.

I have to wonder if some people here ere the ones saying that the analog sucks and that they would only use the D-pad for a true gaming expierence?

No, really, Wii is for non-gamers who like to play non-games while wiggling their body parts around and about their living room.
A GameCube, with a TV remote disguised as a controller.

Wow, I stopped reading the comments at about 13. Can you guys just shut up for one minute? To prove you guys wrong.

1. The "PSP" interface was first used in the PSX. Which was BEFORE the PSP.
2. The guide button that all of you are hollaring about, the one that you think was on the 360 first, WAS ON THE BOOMERANG CONTROLER.

http://japan.cnet.com/media/2005/news/05/050518_8PS3controller400x32.jpg
Look at the top of the controller idiots.

Pretty funny #63, but what about the precious PS3. Its a PS2 with a faster cpu and less first party only titles.

The PS3's dashboard and media features are the evolution of the PSX's dashboard. But the PSX was a complete failure. Why does Sony insist on pushing this onto consumers when it failed the first time?

Evan, If you try something and fail do you not try again? If not, how the hell are you playing video games?

"Is that a guide button I see? Wow, how new and exciting!"

No, it's the home button that PSP had first.

"If Blu Ray offerred higher resolution movies, or was cheaper, or had the vast majority of movie studio support, then that would be of signifigance, and I would be interested and excited about it."

That's what the blu-ray will offer. The formats supported by the blu-ray are of higher definition than those supported by the HD-DVD, and the larger capacity and speed allow more information to be stored and sent. Just because the first gen player is lacking, doesnt mean the format is. You should be excited about it, because it will offer exactly what you say will make you interested in it.

"As for games, storage capacity does not matter. Game design is what matters. Just look at the vast success that XBL and the DS currently enjoy."

Storage, Speed matter to game designers. Sure fun games can be made on less of a system, but when you have a faster system, and a larger canvas to work with you have alot more freedom to create. Example, The Final Fantasy series going to playstation. More speed in a processor means more developed games, AI takes ALOT of power for example. So the more power given to the developer the less they have to play the balancing act with graphics, load, AI, gameplay.

"People play games because they are fun."

If I understand you, you are saying that we need the wiimote to make games fun again. I disagree and because I do, I call the wiimote a gimmick. You don't need gimmicks to make fun games.

"Whether you have been burned by Nintendo before or not, I think they should be applauded for not just taking the "safe" path"

The only people hurt by nintendo's non-safe path taking are those that buy into their gimmicks, when support for such gimmicks is dropped almost immediately after release. GC Online anyone? Nintendo has been using gimmicks to sell their products for a long time, and it works, which is why they keep with the pattern. I was finally happy to see Nintendo fail so badly at their gimmicks with the N64->GC, I was hoping they would get a clue and get back to some good stuff... But my hope was in vain and we got the Wiimote.

"To simplify the Wii's controls as just "waving your arms around" is either intentionally inflammatory"

Spot on there. I was making a joke. About the whole buzz part, gimmicks often do create buzz. Its something new, thats why everyone is excited about it. After it is released and the whole, "new" factor subsides, people will realize it was just another gimmick.

@Redspear

I own brain age, and its not really a game, but more of a learning utensil. Its fun, but after 15 minutes a day, its done. Though, I'll give it to you, that it wouldn't exist without the DS. And nintendogs is just a sim, a tamogachi with a stylus and mic. I don't really think these two games offer much to the industry, but that's just me.

"Yup total Gimmick gamers only care about using a D-pad or analog...or maybe it is the fact that it is not the imupt that matters but how the game uses it and changing the input can someimtes force developers to take a different slant on games and how they are played."

Yea, because 3/5 games use the input system to play the game... Oh wait, They don't use it as anything more than a gimmick. Take the stylus away from those three games, and guess what, they would still be in the top 5. The Stylus is a gimmick, the games gain nothing from it. There are only a handful of great games on the DS that use the stylus as a main form of play, and the best one isn't even sold in the US.

@15 "The backlash of the boomerang was necessary. That was definitely one of the most horrible controllers ever created."

You don't really know that, because you never used the controller. Sure, it didn't look too pretty to most people, but then again, who cares? If it's functional and doesn't make your hand hurt after 10 minutes of using it (which is something you (and I) don't know, 'cause it wasn't released), then it's a good controller.

@24 "Actually Bryan, we are playing Ninty Nine Nights another 360 exclusive that just came out today. So take your smart ass comments somewhere else thank you!"
(Bryan's comment - "the only decent game on the 360(that isnt on PC).")

See, but you missed the part where Bryan said "decent" game. NNN is an Xbox exclusive, yes, but it only gets points if it's a decent game, and it's mediocre at best.

I just like feeding all you guys crap. Truthfully if you think about it Nintendo is the only one out of the three to bring innovation. MS & Sony are in this race for power and money. Seeing who can piss farther while nintendo is in the background catering to the gamers.

You can't be a true gamer if you do not like nintendo, atari or intellivision. They were the first to bring innovation and nintendo still is. Not Sony or MS.

Sony, MS & Sega both stole idea's from Nintendo since day one.

Well since you responded fairly Aex I will do the same.

FF3 uses the touch screen for its game design. It seems to work quite well. MPH uses the Touch screen for its controls and it seems to work quite well. There is of course a learnign curve to everything.

The Blu-Ray does not offer anything significant over HD-DVD in terms of quality. They use the same codecs. the problem iwht the first generation Blu-Rays that people are harping on is the fact that they are encoding the films at a very high bit rate MPEG2 which has a lot more artifacting than say VC1 or H.264 and also uses a lot more space. While I would love uncompressed HD video not going ot happen.

The Blu Ray itself is overly expensive and with regards to the PS3 no real video/audiophile will buy it as a Blu Ray player, the would get the stand alone. If the blu ray itself didn't add much to the price than it would be a good move.

OK so you talk about the differnce in size fine yes hte Blu-Ray can store more per layer but but the time you get to double layer and triple layer(which IMO is still vaporware) it realy doesn't make a difference for COMPRESSED HD video which format you use. Also HD-DVD can support Hybrid discs which is something that Blu -Ray can not, putting both a DVD format and HD-DVD format so the disc can play in both players. Somehting which they did with DVD-Audio formats, a dolby sound track and a DVD-A format.

for all the people (*fanboys*) saying that sony isnt creative or innovative i want you to think of sumtin rite now on the spot that has never been used b4 and tell me how it would make the ps3 better
please go ahead ill wait................

ya not as easy as u thought right?

and one more question to the fanbots in here

do you really think nin/ms/sony even know you exist?
to them you just a little tool that they make money off of.

I did say a handful of great games, tho I havn't really given MPH a fair shot. I played it for liek 20 minutes once.. I didn't like it. I'm looking forward to FF3, but even without the Stylus it would be a great game, the stylus isn't going to make it any better of a game than it already is. Which is my whole point.

And about the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD. Personally I think BR > HDDVD. No one has been able to convince me otherwise, and aparently I havn't been able to convince anyone my way. Really, no one will know, and its all speculation til it stops becomming a NEW FRESH technology, probably 9-15 months will tell for sure.

Having BR in the ps3 is a good move. As the production cost for the BR drops, so will the price of the PS3. People bought the XBOX and the PS2 because they were multimedia devices. Xbox is plannin on giving a HD-DVD to the 360, at an additional cost of 200$. 400+200 (360) = 600 (Ps3). Only difference is sony is making it standard instead of an addon. Of Course these are just price speculations, and we wont really know til it hits the shelves.

But yea, I guess I missed the main reason the PS3 will sell... MGS4

PS3 related threads are always the most popular on any given blog... That's good news.

This is so tiring. I read all 75 comments so far and have heard nothing new. It's all the same crap.

Blu Ray vs. HD DVD has nothing to do with gaming at all. The winner of that war is going to be decided by the average consumer, not gamers.

Who has the better menu system? It doesn't matter. Once you learn the system, it will work for you no matter what.

Which controller is better? Probably the one you're using on the system is was made for. If I'm playing my Wii, its controller will be the best. When I plug in my PS3, its controller will be perfect.

Do you see? Each system exists in and of itself. Trying to figure out which one is "better" is futile. They will each offer something unique.


Back on topic.
This multimedia business makes me laugh. I, for one, would *never* use *any* of the features offered. My game console is used for one thing: gaming.

If I need to listen to music, I have a plethora of devices that can do that already. If I want my own custom soundtrack for a game, I turn off the music in the game and turn on my stereo.

Viewing digital pictures? That's what my computer is for. I have Photoshop, so I can edit them, too. I also use my computer for surfing the net (and I can watch TV while I'm doing it).

I already own a DVD player that operates just fine. I don't like switching out discs in my console every time I want to do something different. Usually, the game I'm currently playing stays in there until I'm done with it.

*Bottom Line*
When it comes down to what these consoles are purchased for (playing games), all three are going to be incredibly fun. Any true gamer will be owning all three. The rest of you can limit yourselves if you want, but don't expect everyone else to follow suit.

If any of you knew that anything about blue ray vs hd-dvd then you would know this: Blue ray uses older codec's (i believe its mpeg2). Therefor video on blue ray either takes up more space to look good, or it looks worse then the same file on HD-DVD which uses newer codec's.

"I doubt that the PSbots will show their faces around here."

Funny comment, considering it's all about PS3. Furthermore, I find it hilarious that nearly everyone here are Xbots. Why is it that ZeroCorpse has 7 stars with such a biased point of view anyway?

Please, forgive my bad spelling in the previuos post (# 77.) English is not my first language.

Everyone who's saying that it looks like the PSP's interface, well, Sony said it would be very much like it. They announced at E3 that the PS3 will use the Cross Media Bar, I mean, the PS3 will probably have a more customizable XMB, so everyone needs to calm down.

When did we first see the "blades" for the 360? I'm sure this is nowhere near final (for devs).

For those that said Sony is ripping off the motion-sensitive and the guide button, please shut up. Motion Sensitive technology has been around for a while now and the PS1 already had one (BEFORE the WII). The guide button is also nothing new. I didn't hear any Sony or Nintendo fans complaining when the Xbox used the rumble feature.

coolyguy3000:

Your name says it all! Are you serious? someone who puts coolguy in their name has no room to tell other's that there wrong.

@70 "See, but you missed the part where Bryan said "decent" game. NNN is an Xbox exclusive, yes, but it only gets points if it's a decent game, and it's mediocre at best."

Thanks for proving my point =).
@25 "Actually Bryan, we are playing Ninty Nine Nights another 360 exclusive that just came out today. So take your smart ass comments somewhere else thank you!"

Oh man I am so jealous of you. You get to play a game thats average rating is below 60....
Even if you are a 360 fanboy, you have to appreciate this fine product Sony will be offering.

@eRock

Don't confuse what blu-ray is capable of with what movie companies choose to use. Blu-ray at this point in time, has the same codecs available to it as HD-DVD does. The company that makes the Blu-ray discs have chosen to encode their product with MPEG-2.

Name a game system that has ever succeeded without the japanese market... goodbye xbox 360 your on your way towards 3DO, Jaguar, XBox 1 history

#84 @eRock

Don't confuse what blu-ray is capable of with what movie companies choose to use. Blu-ray at this point in time, has the same codecs available to it as HD-DVD does. The company that makes the Blu-ray discs have chosen to encode their product with MPEG-2.

I can say this much is true I have a BD-R On my work computer as well as Sonic Scenerist which is capable of authoring blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
The reason they choose to encode in MPEG2 is because they do it save money. They can master it MPEG-2 without any software or hardware changes. It can be broadcast over HD-Channels. However the differnce between a high bitrate MPEG-2 and H.264 is big and the studios really should start spending the extra bucks and time to put Blu-Ray on that. Otherwise it is only a little bit better than DVD and a lot of extra space is eatan up for no reason

Not too eciting - these were shown on the floor at E3 (not final inside, but the same external form factor). The standard min-USB connector for charging the controller is nice, and I think the PSP-like interface has potential to be good. But I still won't buy one. Too damne dexpensive -- especially since I don't care about Blue Ray.

@ people @ eRock. Thanks, KNOW I KNOW lol.

@Aex,
I'm sorry, what gimmicks specifically are you speaking about that Nintendo dropped support for immediately after release?

I'll grant you the virtual boy, Nintendo tried to push it, but no one wanted it, so they dropped support for it.

I'll even give you the run pad that was released for Track & Field on the NES, and the gyromite bot, again for the NES.

But you can't really call online a gimmick when both the 360 & the PS3 are banking heavily on it this generation. You certainly can't claim Nintendo tried to advertise their online service with the GC, because they never did. They never made not one single online game. The only online game for the GC was made by Sega (and sold better on the GC than on the Xbox, oddly enough). Nintendo never supported it, never had any intention of supporting it, because they didn't really believe the public was ready for it. The only reason they even bothered to offer it was because people kept whining about it. That doesn't make it a gimmick, that makes it a sop to their fans. Much the way that Sony went back to the dualshock model for their controller because everyone whined about the boomerang. Nintendo has tried to take every system they've ever released online, the NES, the SNES, the n64, the Gameboy, and it never worked, so they gave up on it until they could get it working.

So, what other gimmicks do you speak of, precisely? The control pad that every controller now uses, the analog stick every controller now uses, shoulder buttons ever controller now uses, stop me when I get to one Nintendo abandoned support for.

Has it ever occurred to you that the reason the Wiimote wasn't released for the GC was because the CPU flat out couldn't handle it? The CPU in the GC isn't even fast enough to handle more than half the output of the GPU. Adding a computationally intensive new control scheme on top of that, which is heavily dependent on wireless communication and the ability to near instantly perform calculus based physics calculations on not one, but 2 moving objects, to an already taxed CPU is probably a bad idea. By redesigning the CPU, they've changed it so that instead of offering a $100+ add-on for an existing system (which I guarantee no one would ever buy), they're able to offer a $250 new system with better graphics, faster and better CPU, and the new control scheme built into the hardware. Then you can just get an additional controller for $50 or less.

As for the DS, it's touch screen, and it's games, the best selling games are not necessarily the best games for the system. Aside from Ouendan, for my money the best game on the system is Meteos hands down. A game that would be very nearly impossible to play with a control pad or analog stick. Ouendan would be impossible without the touch screen, so would Kirby Canvas Curse. No, not every game uses the touchscreen, or benefits from it, but then, not every game has to, because it has the other control options. That means that with a DS I have access to classically controlled games, as well as games that couldn't possibly exist on any other system. That means more game experiences for me.

The Wiimote+Nunchuk can do everything a standard controller can do, except it has half as many buttons, but 60% of games only really use 4 buttons anyway. If necessary, you can map camera controls to the motion-sensing and that'll take care of what most games use the other buttons for anyway. So I have access to any game you can play on your 360 or PS3, as well as games that are flat out impossible on either system. So what's the downside again?

The video posted by #17 showing the GUI is pretty sick!