Ask youself.... go on ask yourself....

What can Sony bring to the table, the gaming table of goodness, that table where you sit at and go, oooooo that's good gaming.

Not much, Nintendo actually make computer games, so they got this whole making games advantage, y'know where they can show the kit in house and they say, "but the pad looks rubbish" and then they change it.

MS have in true MS style bought there experience, which is fine, they've trollied out a generic sequel, which is all fine by me, doesn't interest me so much.

Sony rolled out all they can, some flashy lights. What are the in house developers going to tell SOny, I guess they must have shown the guts to the PlayStation generation devs like Namco and whoever has got the short straw for WipEout...

It seems a consumer certain that the next consoles are going to be better graphicality and when the corporations of blandness come together all they can do is buy more light bulbs.

If the PS3 has Winning Eleven (which I am slightly tired of) and some other cracking titles a year or two into its like I'm sure to buy one.

Heck, this inevitabilty is odd. Almost like I am garunteed decent gameage... that's great news.

The thing is we laugh at their trumped at claims but they do work. On talking about the PS3 to a friend of mine he claimed that the PS3 was going to be "twice as powerful" as the Xbox 360 among other claims. People love these titbits of info and word spreads quickly.

I was pretty amazed by the stuff I heard about the PS2 prior to it's release but held off purchasing one until the real goods started to arrive and I expect I'll be the same in this new generation too.

re: JibberX

There's plenty Sony could offer. It has several in-house dev teams up its sleeves as well for heaven's sake.

We also know the corporation isn't completely stuck for ideas (what with EyeToy and SingStar).

I just think "We hope to change gaming by doing XYZ" is a lot more positive and indeed alluring than "My dick is the biggest! Naa naaa na-naa naa!"

Obviously, that's just me then.

There has to come a point eventually where trading standards get involved. I'm sure that telling porkies about your product must be against all sorts of laws.

As you say it's worked for them before and it's working for them again. I can't see MS holding back next time when XBox 3 is announced.

I'm pretty sure you can get away with any level of hyperbole as long as you can't quantify or measure the boast. In plain English, you can say things like "You'll experience things you've never experienced before" because, well, I haven't experienced a ZX81 emulator running on cell-based processors, for example, but I doubt it'd be thrilling.

If they said something like, "It'll push 5 quadrillion polygons", then trade descriptions could 'ave 'em because it's a lie. Calling something an 'Emotion Engine' isnt a lie, it's just silly (but not illegal).

Anyway, Sony's boasts don't annoy me, I just ignore them. The Playstation's so popular and it's userbase so big that it's home to all sorts of broad gaming experiences you don't see on other platforms. For that, i'm glad of their success. I used to champion Sega machines because they housed niche, interesting games but, these days, I'm glad of Sony's pre-eminence as I've realised the only way you'll get your Curry House sims, bemani games with guitar peripherals and 2D fighters is by having a world-dominating machine so uniform and standard that it can afford to be home to 'indie' titles.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

Of course. My issue wasn't with the corporation's dominance per se (as you say, as long as there are good games, that's the most important thing). It's just all the unmerited bullshit that goes with it, and the fact that its never questioned by anybody.

I think that's my point: I'm glad their marketing is so effective (even if it is unquestioned, and it is bollocks) because I want a machine to dominate, I've realised.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

ew.

I understand the 1 standard discussion point (argument) but it stinks really badly. I find it offensive actually. Its my old Microsoft argument with destop GUIs, its about as innovative and forward thinking as Bernard Manning. Also there is the stagnation point, with no competition the market and all gets grim and stagnated, for instance producing nothing but iname FPS and generic Racers.... wait a second?

Still the PS2 has produced more than enough high quality diverse titles for it to be just about justified in its existance... just, and thats after five freaking years.

It takes a while, and with this ever spiralling circle of production cost I can see it taking much much longer for the ps3 to manage anything I deem interesting.

I knew I’d get that reaction. It’s blinkered, though, if you really think about it. The market just doesn’t sustain smaller hardware developers and their quirky little titles. Even Nintendo would be floundering like a fish on the the quayside if it wasn't for the fact that their handheld sales sustain them. The best you can hope for these days is a decent platform that has really great support. If GTA and FIFA's poularity means a platform thrives, that means the games *I* like are able to get made. Is it an ideal situation? No. Would I like another Saturn? A Neo Geo? A PC Engine? Hell yes. But face facts, it ain't gonna happen. Thankfully, a by-product of ubiquity is variety.

Also, Jibber, I don't think your comparison is fair. In the PC spectrum, you are can have any hardware you like but, at the end of the day, it's most likely going to force you to use Windows...and that's a monoply. In console terms, you're most likely to play on a piece of Sony kit, but the software you play on it can have vast, vast amounts of variety. You should be laying the for generic software at the feet of companies like EA, not at Sony's door. It's EA's marketing and dominance that leads to generic, copycat shite, not Sony's.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

Well its a squished analogy, that's true. And yes, Sony aren't to "blame" for the commercial successes of mediocre to horrendous games. That's the fault of humanity.

I'm definitly in the, you have to buy all the consoles to get the best gaming experience, mindset. But Sony or anyone can't pull all the strings, it won't happen. Eventually, like the portable market little wippersnappers will try, then big fish will try, and it'll all help the market.

You'd hope that MS quite nice L!ve would've motivated Sony to make something decent, but it hasn't thats thanks to 1 million FF gamers. I'm now confusing myself. Quite badly. Basically if it wasn't for MS (gawd bless'em) the online of consoles would still be stuck back in 1998 which is what its like when you use CentralStation... but Sony's arrogance will mean nothing will change, that appears to be the future you want?

Wow for once I find myself agreeing with Treb. His argument however unpaletable is logical.

What's killing the market is development time. Cut down the time and cost investment to develop a title and the returns are potentially economically viable. Chu Chu Rocket is an excellent example here. A game which took a few weeks to develop.

The problem with PS2 is that it's by all accounts a bastard to develop for, but companies can't and won't ignore it because of it's massive installed base. Lets hope that the PS3 redresses this and is actually easier to work with.

I suppose this explains the recent explosion in Middleware. It basically cuts down development time and opens up a bigger intalled userbase = Win.

I've tried to believe having a market full of Sega's is good for the industry, I really have. But it isn't, sadly. Not in this economic climate, certainly. Also, having a bog-standard, easy-to-program-for hardware platform isn't necessarily the best answer, either. It makes a lot of devcos lazy. Bar Bungie, no-one but the odd rare exception have topped the graphical prowess of JSRF or Orta on the Xbox.

I think there should be middleware, yes, but I am unconvinced that making the hardware as user-friendly and off-the-shelf as possible is a good thing. It certainly hasn't been the case with the Xbox.

And you should agree with me more, Madders. You're too much of an idealist. Grow up and be pragmatic, for God's sake

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

Sega's model though is quite an interesting one. The idea of setting up small development teams as competing entities within the same organisation initially seems like a stupid idea, but the spin-off has been a lot of fresh games.

Funny how the quality seemed to dry up the second they dropped the dreamcast though isn't it.

I think the 'unsustainable market' idea is just horribly pessimistic. Why is it unsustainable? There is no reason why other platforms cannot co-exist at all.

It must have seemed the same with Atari's dominance around 1983/1984, but can you think of any genuinely great 2600 released at that time? There were lots of indies around because the market was huge, but almost all the games were shite.

Stagnation, due to lack of innovation from Atari, meant that the whole market imploded. The only machines to survive were those ploughing their own fields, and genuinely pushing innovation themselves.

The same will happen again for Sony, I am sure of that. You cannot argue that by their conservative but popular hardware design they are helping push innovation at all. Devcos are finding ways to produce decent games despite of Sony, not because of them.

You can easily compare this to the stagnation of the Windows platform, but you cannot compare in terms of hardware and software. Windows is so ubiquitous it _is_ the platform, and any compatible products looking to make a profit have to be compatible.

Diversity and innovation will only come by games hardware pushing in different directions, aiming at different people, and trying to do different things.

By saying you hope for a dominant platform you are utterly defeated; you are accepting that you will have to make do with the best of a bad bunch, and the lack of fight zero-competition gives an industry.

I think this is a weak argument for supporting the PS2 itself, with apologist reasoning.

There is no way I would say the PS2 line up has anything approaching an essential back catalogue; I hardly use mine.

The more FIFA and GTA sequels and clones people play, the more they will realise 'this is shit' and stop buying them.

OK so let me ask you which consoles you use the most starting with the most played going down to the least. I'm excluding handhelds here and the use of emulators.

My list would read something like this

Sega Dreamcast
Sega Saturn
PS2
Gamecube
XBox

OK so I'm a Sega fanboy and I've had the fortune of hand picking a library of games for those two machines from some of the best games around in those eras.

My PS2 has the next strongest lineup. Practically none of it is PAL mind. Katamari Damashii, ICO, InitialD, VF4evo, Eyetoy, Singstar, Densha de GO, Taiko no Tatsujin. The list goes on and on.

I'd like to have faith that the glory days of the DC will return, but in reality we're all going to have to duck and cover for at least another generation before anything revolutionary happens (and no Nintendo it isn't you).

Ok...

GameCube
Xbox
Dreamcast
Saturn
PS2

The Saturn > PS2 is a bit of a blip though, I've been playing through my back catalog recently.

GameCube gets the most play in my house, by far...

I have more PS2 games that Xbox ones, but I tend to buy and give up much sooner with most PS2 games.

Oh, and the shitty average chart games I try and convince myself will be as good as people are saying tend to go on the Xbox rather than the PS2, because the video quality is so bad.

What pray tell are you playing on the XBox? Outrun2 I can understand that, Panzer Dragoon Orta? I'm struggling though, what else is there?

Like I said emulators don't count...

I see your point, PC, but I don't share it. It's obvious by the games I play that other solutions to the dominance of Sony would benefit me personally, but i'm trying to have a longer-term view of the situation. I think the way the hardware market stands at the moment is about right. The dominance of large publishers, the way they pimp their generic tripe, and how this hurts 'our' industry is another argument entirely, though.....

______

♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

I seriously believe another crash will happen. In fact, I almost hope it does.

Chaos theory and all that...

After the Cube there is a pretty big drop off...

Lots of OutRun 2 yeah, and Orta. Been playing Shenmue II again recently, and I've just got hold of Project Zero, Crazy Taxi 3, House of the Dead III, Headhunter Redemption, Super Monkey Ball Deluxe.

*EDIT* Fanboy alert!

Fingers crossed

EA are giving the whole process a helping hand too, there seem to be cracks appearing...