Except that I can't see any reason to buy a PS3 save for MGS4. The Nintendo Wii is a much more interesting product, and for a fraction of the cost. I know which one has my money 😉

I think people are missing the point with the PS3. Sony is in it for the long haul with the PS3.

To Microsoft the XBox is dead and the 360 is it. To Sony the PS2 still has some life in it. Sure the PS3 will be expensive but if you think about it, it's not really that much more expensive than a 360 considering the extra hardware it has. I predict in a year there really won't be any major difference i price between a 360 and a PS3.

But yeah if I cared to buy a console it would be the Wii.

My prediction is that unless Sony drops the price on the PS3 before the first Christmas after it launches, it's going to tank miserably *everywhere* except in Japan.

The Wii, despite the name, is going to do quite well due to the low price point, Nintendo branding, and unique features.

The XBox 360 is already out, so it will get a head start on the others. I expect it to do fairly well in the U.S. (and elsewhere probably) but not Japan.

I'm not into consoles these days either, and don't plan to buy any of those.

I just hope they don't cripple it like the PS2 Linux content. While it was possbile to create playable content with PS2 Linux, it was only playable by the small fraction that had PS2 Linux, you couldn't create a standalone playable game.

I am also voting oui for Wii. That will be the one that I pick up at launch, the others I may get after a couple years when a larger library of games is out and the price has dropped quite a bit. If nothing else, I want to try out the different ways of playing with the unique Wii controllers. I am mainly a PC gamer, but the Wii has really intrigued me more than any other console.

It would be interesting to see if a version of DosBox could be made to use the Wii Virtual Console which plays the old NES, SNES, and Sega games. Nintendo has said this about the virtual console in their press release:

It also will be home to new games conceived by indie developers whose creativity is larger than their budgets

It sounds like they will be allowing content by indie developers, and with a SD slot on the conosle, it would be easy to store your DOS game on a SD cart to play on it.

DosFreak wrote:

I think people are missing the point with the PS3. Sony is in it for the long haul with the PS3.

To Microsoft the XBox is dead and the 360 is it. To Sony the PS2 still has some life in it. Sure the PS3 will be expensive but if you think about it, it's not really that much more expensive than a 360 considering the extra hardware it has. I predict in a year there really won't be any major difference i price between a 360 and a PS3.

But yeah if I cared to buy a console it would be the Wii.

I heard Sony claim the PS3 will last 10 years. My prediction? 5 years....just like every other console. They talk big, looking down on both Microsoft and Nintendo but I think they are going to be in for a shock come 2007 when they aren't in the lead.

This is all from a PC gamer btw. 😉 The wii is the first console to actually catch my interest since the N64.

Doubtful. Console manufacturers seem to be designing their console's more and more like PC's. If the GPU in the PS3 isn't good enough 5 years from now (which I doubt since we are still seeing great PS2 games today), then they could quite easily upgrade it and offer a slimmer PS3 just like they did with the PS2.

I can see the PS3 easily lasting 10 years (just not in it's current incarnation).

DosFreak wrote:

Doubtful. Console manufacturers seem to be designing their console's more and more like PC's. If the GPU in the PS3 isn't good enough 5 years from now (which I doubt since we are still seeing great PS2 games today), then they could quite easily upgrade it and offer a slimmer PS3 just like they did with the PS2.

I can see the PS3 easily lasting 10 years (just not in it's current incarnation).

Upgrades remind me of Sega's consoles, and we all know where they ended up 😉

Also remember....10 years is a LONG time, think 1990 games versus 2000 games. Not even top of the line PCs can last 10 years, hell my PC isn't even 2 years old (was top of the line) and I'm already struggling to keep up. I imagine in another few years I'll be forced to upgrade or play at 640x480 on minimum...

By the time the PS3 comes out it will have been 6 years since the PS2 was released.

6 years..... It was only 4 years for the XBOX to the XBOX 360.

Considering the amount of $$ that Sony invested in the PS3 I'm betting that they are going to go at least as long as they did with the PS2 with the PS3. Most likely longer.

You can't compare console's to PC's. Consoles are a different beast even though in the coming years they keep on throwing more PC functionaility in there (unfortunately).....who knows what console's will be like in 10 years time. (Probably all games on a cluster of servers somewhere and Citrix'd (or something similar) in for remote access).

I think Microsoft released the 360 ahead of the normal console cycle which is usually 5-6 years.
PS1 - 1994 Japan, 1995 US
PS2 - 2000

NES - 1983 Japan, 1985 US
SNES - 1990 Japan, 1991 US
N64 - 1996
Gamecube - 2001

I guess they were trying to get the advantage of being first to market with the next generation, time will telll if that strategy will pay off. It didn't help Sega, but then they were in a completely different set of circumstances. I think Sony themselves has helped the 360 more than anything by pricing their PS3 so high. I have always been of the opinion that Microsoft never really gets a viable product until the 3rd incarnation, looking back at Windows 3.0, IE 3, Word for Windows 2.0 (1.0 and 1.1 before that).

Actually the PS1 had a 10 year run, they just stopped manufacturing them recently, though I don't believe there have been any new games released for the platform in several years.

avatar_58 wrote:

DosFreak wrote:

I think people are missing the point with the PS3. Sony is in it for the long haul with the PS3.

I heard Sony claim the PS3 will last 10 years. My prediction? 5 years....just like every other console. They talk big, looking down on both Microsoft and Nintendo but I think they are going to be in for a shock come 2007 when they aren't in the lead.

This is all from a PC gamer btw. 😉 The wii is the first console to actually catch my interest since the N64.

The only consoles I can think of that lasted even close to 10 years were the Atari 2600, Game Boy, and *maybe* the original NES, and that's just because people couldn't afford to buy a new console every couple of years.

Also, the PS3 is a dramatic shift in console hardware architecture (specifically the cell processor). For games to run well on it, they'll have to take special advantage of its unique hardware features (an interesting decision on Sony's part in this era of the same game being released for multiple platforms). The problem is, when you have first-generation hardware that's this different, several things happen that don't bode well for the console's future:

• Game developers have to learn how to use it best, which means early games are going to be slow and buggy, and won't take full advantage of the console's capabilities.
• The hardware itself - being a first-generation cell processor console - is going to have undiscovered limitations and problems that will result in a strong desire from developers and Sony engineers for a successor console that addresses those issues.
• Their competitors will release a following generation of hardware on something close to the normal 5-year cycle, which will leave the PS3 a dinosaur at the end of its supposed 10 year lifespan.

Sony does indeed seem very arrogant. My guess is that they're marketing to Japan and don't have a good global awareness of the console market. It may be that their goal is to continue to dominate Japan, while merely maintaining a sizable presence in the rest of the world.