PS3 price drops again

Stephen!

stormkeeper wrote: »

I'm kinda left wondering if there's anything truly original left in mainstream games... sure, there may be some graphical enhancements and game tweaks here and there, along with one or two new things, but at the end of the day there's not been much in the way of groundbreaking games over the past 5 years... dare I say that in some ways, games are going a bit like mainstream music, which is nice to listen to and all that, but at the same time, you've heard it all before. It's the independant people that seem to be breaking new ground, as opposed to the mainstream, take for example Introversion Software who did Uplink, Darwinia and Defcon. They're indie, although to a slight degree they're mainstream, but there's still more originality in their games than a lot of the others.

I know I quoted a PC games developer, but they were the only non-mainstream dev that I could think of. That said though, the fact that there's the XNA thing out is a good thing too, especially with regards to the 360, though it does mean benefits for the PC too. The mainstream publishers seem to be more interested in milking their cash cows with their countless clones and sequels. It's kind of a worrying precident when there's the possibility that you get the latest 60 quid game, only to find out that it's exactly the same game as the one before... only with prettier graphics, although I guess it'll please the "graphics are great" crowd.

Personally, I'd prefer something with a little more substance.

I dunno man, I think heres been alot of gameplay and AI evoloution hat has been important. I kinda think that alot of people are making games like Gears and Halo because its kinda the game they always wanted to make isnt it? Like with Quake and Doom, even back as far as Duke Nukem, they werent really able to make the game the full way they wanted to, and i think nowadays they are capable of making them the way they wanted them to be. And to me a good story plus a fun game is all you need, like BioShock, Gears of War, Halo 3 (wasnt that into the other but this one is amazing!) Oblivioin, Prey, Crackdown, Final Fntasy Vii, Metal Gear Solid 1,2,3, Mercenaries, GTA's etc etc...

Dont be at yourself

But don't cut your nose off to spite your face, I'd hate to have a constant diet of arthouse movies or nothing on the radio except alternative rock, lets have a bit of balance, lets not over intellectualise gaming and find ourselves too good for a spot of Doom3 or above a spin around a snowy nurburgring in an open topped porsche in PGR4.

Absolutely, a balance is needed. A console's line-up has to touch all bases - not just the mainstream ones, and not just the arthouse ones. The 360's answer to the latter seems to be reliant on XBLA, whereas (for whatever reason - ties to Japanese developers, brand name, mission statement?) there seems to be more 'arthouse' stuff coming up on the PS3.

Anyway, on a different note: I read the other day a report that said of all the titles released until the end of the year, platform exclusives break down something like this:

PS3: 5
360: 8
Wii: 23

...which says a lot!

mickoneill30

I've 3 friends with Wiis. The complaint all of them have is that apart from the games they got with the box they don't see much else that they want to buy.

For me I couldn't give a damn about platform exclusives. If it's good and available for my console I'll buy it. I don't care that it's not "exclusive". If it's exclusive for my console and crap it's not joining my collection. I'm not an arthouse kind of player. The games I spent my time on this year were Gears Of War, Command & Conquer 3, Bomberman Live & Halo 3. The next few games on my list are COD4, Speedball 2 & Burnout Paradise. Those'll keep me busy for ages.

If you're deciding what console to buy have a look at lists like these.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wii_games
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_3_games
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_games

Do a sort by release date and decide which games you might be buying next year. Then choose your console. This list probably isn't 100% complete but you all know how to use Google yourselves.

LookingFor

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Anyway, on a different note: I read the other day a report that said of all the titles released until the end of the year, platform exclusives break down something like this:

PS3: 5
360: 8
Wii: 23

Well, I'm not sure how accurate that is. The PS3 figure doesn't seem right. I can count more than that off the top of my head. So the other figures could be wrong too.

But it doesn't really tell the whole story anyway. The Wii's high ratio of exclusivity is due to its very nature, but it doesn't necessarily make for a more appealing lineup. The Wii has a lot of exclusive games that look rubbish..more exclusive games doesn't necessarily make for a more appealing lineup. And there's stuff that's on the PS Store or XBLA that on Wii would be a fully fledged game, that doesn't get counted in lists like these in PS3 or 360's favour (see Geometry Wars on Wii or Luxo etc.). I'd take a lot of the PS3 and 360's multiplatform stuff over a lot of the Wii's exclusive stuff any day. The fact that PS3 and 360 can often share titles is actually kind of a strength for both platforms, as it boosts the incentive to develop games for those platforms if they can be shared across a bigger audience by easily bringing a game to another platform.

And I think mickoneill30 hits on a point we often miss too - most single-console owners, which in the end will be most console owners, don't really care if a game is exclusive or not as long as it's available to them.

0ubliette

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Absolutely, a balance is needed. A console's line-up has to touch all bases - not just the mainstream ones, and not just the arthouse ones. The 360's answer to the latter seems to be reliant on XBLA, whereas (for whatever reason - ties to Japanese developers, brand name, mission statement?) there seems to be more 'arthouse' stuff coming up on the PS3.

Anyway, on a different note: I read the other day a report that said of all the titles released until the end of the year, platform exclusives break down something like this:

PS3: 5
360: 8
Wii: 23

...which says a lot!

The wii has so many exclusives because theyre games based around waggle control which the other consoles cant do. Id bet a pound to a pinch of **** that out of those 23 less than 5 would be quality games, judging on past performance. The rest will be barbie race n ride: waggle edition.

sprinkles

I disagree. Most of the cross platform cr@p is coming out on the wii - EA etc but I think you'll find as much if not more quality exclusives ont he wii than on the other platforms. We could argue that point all day but using the number above out of the 23 wii exclusives you're bound to find 3 - 4 quality games. That number would be quite similar to the other consoles lineup if not better. It may not be quantity we're looking for but a bigger pool of games gives us a better chance of getting that gem we're always looking for.

As for the quality on the wii at the minute - I have at least 5 great games at home that I think are equal to anything the 360 can through up in terms of fun and gameplay. I can't comment on the PS3 as I don't own one (yet) but from what I've seen there's not much going on there (again yet).

LookingFor wrote:

The fact that PS3 and 360 can often share titles is actually kind of a strength for both platforms, as it boosts the incentive to develop games for those platforms if they can be shared across a bigger audience by easily bringing a game to another platform.

the incentive for companies to create games for the wii, unlike the previsou ninentdo consoles of recent times, is the vast number of units sold. They could focus on creating the 360/PS3 multiplatfor games but I'd hazzard a guess that the development costs are greater for those 2 and you're reaching a similar sized audience, so I really don't see your point on that one.

I have absolutely no doubt that Sony will come good eventually and there will be a few very good reasons to buy the PS3 but for me there aren't any (.......yet)



This seems to have divulged into a "which console is worth buying" thread (which I guess is better than the usual "which is better" thread).

Dont be at yourself

Well, I'm not sure how accurate that is. The PS3 figure doesn't seem right. I can count more than that off the top of my head. So the other figures could be wrong too.

Here's the article below:

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/7213/

Publisher commitment is shifting significantly to Nintendo's Wii with 86 titles scheduled for release in Q4, compared with 47 for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and 38 for Sony's PlayStation 3. A quarter of Wii releases are exclusive to the platform – compared with eight for the Xbox 360 and five for Playstation 3.
Wii is proving attractive to publishers not only because of its rapidly growing installed base, but also thanks to lower development costs and the relative ease of transferring development resources to the platform compared with its 256 bit counterparts. As a result Screen Digest expects that the number of games available for Wii will surpass Xbox 360's library in early 2008 at current release rates.

Armed with the most exclusives as well as the release of Super Mario Galaxy, Screen Digest believes that Wii is likely to lead the 256 bit market in the final quarter of 2007. The Xbox 360 platform will be driven by an increasingly well established US user base enjoying a combination of strong multiplatform releases and a persistent Halo 3. Given the competition, Sony's release schedule lacks the firepower to command consumer attention during this crucial trading quarter and it is difficult to see how the catalogue will drive hardware sales in such a competitive environment

stormkeeper

Stephen! wrote: »

I dunno man, I think heres been alot of gameplay and AI evoloution hat has been important. I kinda think that alot of people are making games like Gears and Halo because its kinda the game they always wanted to make isnt it? Like with Quake and Doom, even back as far as Duke Nukem, they werent really able to make the game the full way they wanted to, and i think nowadays they are capable of making them the way they wanted them to be. And to me a good story plus a fun game is all you need, like BioShock, Gears of War, Halo 3 (wasnt that into the other but this one is amazing!) Oblivioin, Prey, Crackdown, Final Fntasy Vii, Metal Gear Solid 1,2,3, Mercenaries, GTA's etc etc...

That's a good point. Doom 3 is a prime example of what you quoted above, given it's a remake of Doom 1, but the way ID intended it to be. Admittedly though, the first Doom still scares me, as does Doom 3, although in the case of the first Doom, the monsters appear out of nowhere making me jump, and in Doom 3, it's more of the "oh crap" feeling, although it's kinda predictable to an extent, although it's not always known what you're about to face. But yeah, the gameplay and AI have been enhanced for the better. That said though, you don't necessarily need to have a story to make a good game; the original Doom proved that, though as I've read somewhere, it's more an emotion, as opposed to a game, and with a plot like "Evil demon aliens have killed and/or taken over your squadmates and are intent on taking over the Earth/Mars so you have to kill them", there's little else to say other than lemme at 'em!

Then we have the other titles with an absorbing backstory with good gameplay. I could go on, but I'm kinda feeling meh atm, but suffice to say, what I heard of Bioshock is that it's essentially System Shock 2, albeit dumbed down for the console generation, though I did get that from Zero Punctuation. I might actually play the demo just to see what it's like... although I did buy Quake Wars and intend to buy the Orange Box as well, I'm excited about TF2, though they made it different to what it was when I last saw it in 1999... I do have to wonder if Duke Nukem Forever will ever come out though!

stormkeeper

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Here's the article below:

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/7213/

Go figure that my "educated guess" was right about the Wii, in some regard... granted, I was implying more about the system (which could still happen), but the fact that the games will overtake the other two still kinda ties in with what I was saying. Again, I say that the Wii will be more appealing to first-time, and also retro gamers, which actually will be quite a significant market. It'll be interesting though to see how PlayStation Home will do, given it was mentioned in class a while ago... and some people in my class are on the beta. It could possibly give XBox Live a run for its money, though I wonder what's gonna happen with the Windows equivelent.

What I've read has mentioned that everything is moving towards the online market now along with downloadable and streaming content, and I imagine this trend is set to continue. I imagine 2-3 generations from now, we'll be looking at nearly exclusively online content, provided the internet connections are up to it.


Bleh, I wonder where all this stuff comes from to be honest. I'm able to talk about stuff for a couple paragraphs, then I start to fall down

0ubliette

stormkeeper wrote: »

what I heard of Bioshock is that it's essentially System Shock 2, albeit dumbed down for the console generation

:rolleyes:
This gets me every time. Some of the most innovative games of the last few generations have all been on consoles. The games arent 'dumbed down' and how anyone could accuse bioshock of being dumbed down...jesus christ..the mind boggles, it really does.

Sephiroth_dude

*breaths heavy*

Im tempted to buy a ps3 this weekend -_- or possibly an xbox 360 or a wii,I Dunno

Retr0gamer

0ubliette wrote: »

:rolleyes:
This gets me every time. Some of the most innovative games of the last few generations have all been on consoles. The games arent 'dumbed down' and how anyone could accuse bioshock of being dumbed down...jesus christ..the mind boggles, it really does.

You should play System Shock 2. It really is a dumbed down version of a 1999's System Shock 2.

mickoneill30

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Here's the article below:

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/7213/

That's a link to an article about a report. When I tried to access the report I get the option to pay for it. Great. Is there any link to that list of games. I don't like believing reports if I can't see the data with my own eyes.

I had a look at Nintendos site but this can't be right.

http://www.nintendo.com/gamelist?start=41&oord=asc&osort=rd&sort=&cmd=next&toggle=true&query=virtual&tf=&cf=&sf=Wii&ef=&rf=&pf=&mf=&af=&vf=&nf=
When you filter to show all games so far for the Wii and look at the last month you get a list with 8 of the 12 games released in the last month are for the Virtual Console. That's hardly cutting edge. I'm pretty sure those 8 will be exclusives too unless they're also redoing games from 1986 & 1989 for the Xbox360 & PS3. They are good old games and worth having a bash but developing an exclusive like that is hardly the same effort or cost as developing a brand new exclusive.

I could be wrong though. Maybe there's a list with 86 titles developed for the Wii and not just games from 10 - 20 years ago redone for the virtual console.

humanji

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You should play System Shock 2. It really is a dumbed down version of a 1999's System Shock 2.

I don't blame that on the game coming out on consoles, just the developers having tunnel vision and not realising they were just rehashing SS2 (and I hope they didn't realise it!).

The main problem PC players have with games that are released on all formats can be summed up in 4 horrific words: Deus Ex: Invisible War *shudder* That game destroyed a lot of peoples hopes for games on consoles and for gaming in general. A little bit of me died the day it was released...

stormkeeper

Problem with console games is that you can't have the same controls as you do for the PC... my lecturer pointed out Tiberium Wars on 360 as a case in point... it has a really bizarre control scheme!

System Shock 2, which is a brilliant game would never be able to work on a PS3 or 360 joypad, or if it did, you would have to lose a lot of the stuff for it, and I'd imagine you would actually have something like Bioshock after refining it for the consoles!

It's quite a shame that they didn't start off with some more of the SS2 features, then took them out for the 360 version. The fact that it costs nothing to hac... sorry, plumb and also use the revival yokes kinda takes the edge from the game. Granted, I've not played it yet, but I did listen to the review on The Escapist website...

CiDeRmAn

The thing about Bioshock was it was/is spectacular to watch, simple to play and very cinematic, some nice effects and scared the underbeneaths off of me on several occasions, I tell you never trust a woman reaching into a pram while she's only in silhouette, it could lead to the discharge of firearms!
But why worry about remakes?
I mean most players of Bioshock have never played System Shock 2, many people who bought Doom 3 may not have played Doom as anything other than an anachronistic game on their mobile phone, a game as a historical artifact rather than a scary game that kept them dreaming of Revenents and Cyberdemons til all hours.
Its ok to update IPs that need more exposure, the real criminals in this field are the likes of Sonic team who rape Sonic the hedgehog on a regular basis and ruin its reputation for the next gaming generation with crap like any Sonic game you care to mention on the Xbox, PS2, GC and now on PS3 and 360 too.

The PS3 will have just as many reheated IPs as the 360, covering the cost of development across 2 or more consoles, in fact the biggest culprit of this type of thing may be the Wii and DS as Nintendo dig down deep into their backcatalog of game characters bringing us more adventures with Samus, Mario, Donkey Kong and Link, the only difference being one of quality control, Nintendo seem to take better care of the family jewels.

mickoneill30

stormkeeper wrote: »

Problem with console games is that you can't have the same controls as you do for the PC... my lecturer pointed out Tiberium Wars on 360 as a case in point... it has a really bizarre control scheme!

Why is that a problem? I used to play PC games. Now I play console games. It's no big deal. Did you or your lecturer play Tiberium Wars on the 360? It takes about 20 mins to master (about as long as it took me to master using a control pad for a fps). It's been my most played game this year. I'm sure the mouse seemed a really bizarre control scheme when people started using them for games. Different doesn't mean bad.

Dont be at yourself

That's a link to an article about a report. When I tried to access the report I get the option to pay for it. Great. Is there any link to that list of games. I don't like believing reports if I can't see the data with my own eyes.

They quote the relevant part of the report. Screen Digest are a reputable company, so I'm not sure why you'd be sceptic...

sprinkles

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

who rape Sonic the hedgehog on a regular basis

Dear, God, No.... Nooooooo!!!!!!!

stormkeeper

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Why is that a problem? I used to play PC games. Now I play console games. It's no big deal. Did you or your lecturer play Tiberium Wars on the 360? It takes about 20 mins to master (about as long as it took me to master using a control pad for a fps). It's been my most played game this year. I'm sure the mouse seemed a really bizarre control scheme when people started using them for games. Different doesn't mean bad.

Yeah, my lecturer played it on the 360, but the things he said about the control scheme for the game in class (I do a games design and development class) had me going "Huh?" I was left wondering why the 360 didn't have a mouse... or does it?

And "different doesn't mean bad" is kind of a false statement. Coca Cola changed the recipe for their flagship drink, and there were huge complaints about it, so different can be bad. A truer statement is "different doesn't always mean bad".

mickoneill30

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

They quote the relevant part of the report. Screen Digest are a reputable company, so I'm not sure why you'd be sceptic...

Reputable or not there's should be no secrecy about these upcoming exclusives.. Any link to the list of all these exclusive games. It shouldn't be that hard to find. My main point was that a lot of the exclusives seem to be for the virtual console. Should that be called an exclusive then as those games have obviously been on other consoles (NES, Mega Drive etc). Maybe the 80 exclusives are entirely created for the Wii. I just can't find a list of them which is unusual.

mickoneill30

stormkeeper wrote: »

A truer statement is "different doesn't always mean bad".

What? I don't really want to discuss the meanings of words on this forum. It's a bit pedantic.

CiDeRmAn

And we aren't even going to discuss "pedantic", I mean, what have feet got to do with it?