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vman
05-29-2005, 03:03 PM
Don't believe anything until you see it, fellas. Here is a cnn article that sort of hits you hard with the backhand of reality.

Smoke, mirrors and the next generation
History tells us: Don't believe all you're hearing about Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – There was a lot of hype last week about the next generation of game machines. Microsoft said the Xbox 360 will ultimately reach 1 billion consumers worldwide, while Sony gave a laundry list of features for the PlayStation 3, showing some jaw dropping footage along the way.
(Nintendo promised a Revolution, but didn't go much further than that.)

I hate to be a wet blanket, but it's time to come back to reality.

It's not hard to forgive the hardware publishers for a little bit of hyperbole at E3, the annual trade show of the video game industry. It is, after all, their moment in the sun. But now that the crowds have gone home and the booth babes have changed back into street clothes, it's time to recognize that a fair number of the promises made last week will quietly fade away.

Need proof? Look no further than the introductory days of the PlayStation 2 or Xbox.

The Xbox was supposed to have resolution that went beyond HDTV and have a graphics chip three times beyond that of the PC. Ultimately, only a handful of games have offered 1080i resolution (the current standard for high-def). Most titles offering advanced graphics stick with 480p resolution, which is lower than high definition. And PCs had nVidia's (Research) GeForce 3 (which featured a graphics chip comparable to that found in the Xbox) months before the console launched.

Bill Gates, meanwhile, spoke of "incredible, persistent, online worlds" that would be created because of what the Xbox hard drive could do. Only one – "True Fantasy Live Online" - was started, and it never materialized.

The PlayStation 2 was going to offer AOL Instant Messaging and have characters whose facial expressions were incredibly lifelike as they progressed through the game. AIM and PS2 were never again spoken in the same sentence – and the lauded "emotion engine" didn't come close to living up to its promise.

Phil Harrison, an executive vice president at Sony, talked highly of software that would incorporate visual imaging, saying it would enable users to import photographs from a digital camera, then "animate these in 3D, add sounds, and email them to their family or friends, just like a greeting card."

Never happened.

So what about the pretty pictures we all saw? Guess what... the graphics demos at those 1999 and 2000 press conferences were just as impressive (at the time) as what Sony showed off with its footage of "Killzone" or "Fight Night: Round 3" last Monday. Sony showed a lifelike female character from "Ridge Racer" strutting a catwalk and winking flirtatiously at viewers when it unveiled the PS2. Early Xbox footage showed a buff woman named Raven and her hulking robot friend showing off their martial arts form.

Both were amazing pieces of video, but no real-time gameplay on either machine ever lived up to that early footage.

That's not really the fault of developers. It's not hard to make early tech demos especially impressive, since you don't have to worry about including artificial intelligence or physics or any of the other resource chomping features that have to go into games to make them fun. Publishers, though, create them to have something to show potential buyers and say "Look! Look!! Now you've got to buy our new machine!" before laughing maniacally and rushing off to roll around in their piles of cash.

Let's not forget online, either. Sony (Research), back before the PS2's launch, said gamers would be able to download titles from existing PlayStation and PS2 libraries via broadband. Harrison (sounding a lot like Microsoft's (Research) J. Allard did earlier this year) encouraged developers to think of episodic games, which could be downloaded chapter by chapter.

Gates, meanwhile, told gamers they would be able to download trial versions of games to their Xbox's hard drive to help them decide whether to buy a retail copy. The same promise is being made with Xbox 360.

The fact of the matter is we will see a leap in quality with next generation games. I've had the chance to have hands-on time with several Xbox 360 games, including the very promising "Gears of War" and "Need for Speed: Most Wanted," and they show tons of potential. I'm sure when the time comes to try out PS3 games I'll be equally impressed.

But as Sony talks of users using the PS3's optional high-def camera to launch their own broadcasts and Microsoft discusses non-gamers hopping onto Xbox Live to sell shirts or skateboards they've created for the latest "Tony Hawk" game, take it with a grain of salt.

Better yet, grab a big shaker and begin pouring liberally.

odpr
05-29-2005, 03:26 PM
every word in the ROCK.

thunderkiss2k1
05-29-2005, 06:42 PM
Don't believe anything until you see it, fellas. Here is a cnn article that sort of hits you hard with the backhand of reality.


Trolls...........

TheCovenant
05-29-2005, 07:22 PM
every word in the ROCK.


uhm...what?

ColdArmoR
05-29-2005, 08:42 PM
Yeah... wtf?
Anyways, I think this CNN guy is right, There will be some disapointment....



with the PS3. :) :)

Nurb
05-30-2005, 04:28 AM
I think the writer is dead on, They're good at hypnotizing us with flashing lights and shiny things, its looking past the hype thats the problem. Remember the '04 E3 where they showed off Halo 2, only to end up with dumbed down graphics, and STILL needed smaller levels to cope? or the growing, aging world that had to be cut and downsized in the final version of Fable?

I think people are beginning to call them on their BS more and more though, which is shown by the angry 'what the hell?'s when gamers first load the game to find its not as clear and crisp as they were led to believe. Its gotten to the point now that the game companies are releasing high-rez screens as in game stuff, showing you all these neat things but the final product looks noticably lacking

Its like they're selling you on the really super-cool concept car, but delivering the sedan that looks like everything else

StudioAlex
05-30-2005, 11:24 AM
I think he should have recalled the "Toy Story" quality graphics claim by sony. Also the one where the PS2 could run the movies from FF8 in real time.

mattgame
05-30-2005, 11:34 AM
Yeah... wtf?
Anyways, I think this CNN guy is right, There will be some disapointment....



with the PS3. :) :)

Exactly. :cheers:

Plewis
05-31-2005, 11:29 PM
that puts all this a little more in perspective, good post V.

I wasn't disapointed with my xbox, I doubt I'll be disapointed with my next gen console.

TheCovenant
05-31-2005, 11:40 PM
this whole thread looks familiar...

vman
05-31-2005, 11:51 PM
this whole thread looks familiar...
deja vu?

plewis, the thing is, we WONT be dissapointed with the next gen systems but it is very likely that we will not get the 'perfect' system from anyone. which is what each party of the big 3 are claiming. this article, IMO, reflects that based on what has happend in the past. and as we all know, history tends to repeat itself.

Variation-XBA
06-01-2005, 01:15 AM
this whole thread looks familiar...
Was gunna say....

I don't get hyped for much anymore, that way it can only get better from what I expect.

OC Noob
06-01-2005, 01:38 AM
Don't believe anything until you see it, fellas. Here is a cnn article that sort of hits you hard with the backhand of reality.


Dude is just stating the obvious. If anyone believes all the claims they aren't very smart and most people here don't Sure there are a million idiots that thought that Killzone vid was real game footage and another million or so that thought the movies Sony showed at E3 were real game footage too, but most of the people that frequent forums like this are too smart to believe all the hype.


One thing you can believe is the in game footage from some of the Xbox games (no, not the movies made, because they showed a lot fo those too). MS even said they don't want the expectations too high and that why they showed real, very rough alpha in game footage, while Sony showed a bunch of movies fooling noobs into thinking thats what the games will look like.


We can pretty much expect something above or about the quality of HL2 from this first bunch of games on the 360 (not gameplay, but gfx, physics and mechanics).

After that we will see what devs can do with these ultra powerful machines. Think of it this way, the 360 is WELL over 5 times more powerful that the Xbox, so we know the gfx will be there, the physics will be there, the NPC animations/facial expressions will be there and much better AI will be there. Atleast, devs can do these things on consoles now. Whatever happens from there is a bonus and with 3 cores (6 threads, a vid cards thats 2 gens ahead of its time and with video card ram instead of system ram (MUCH faster) theres going to be tons of untapped power past what the first batches of games will offer.

You think DIII lloks good on the Xbox, you'll crap when you see even the first Xbox 360 games at 720p or 1080i.

Same goes with the PS3. Its going to blow you away too, but not like all the individual, unique animations and cinimatics that the E3 movies had. Its performance is heavily dependant on Cell and the NV card, two unknowns. If either fall short the 360 may have more power. More likely it will be a bit more powerful that the 360, but NV would really have to pull an elephant out of its ass to beat that ATI card by enough to blow away the 360. Even if Cell has twice the power of the Xbox cores, that ATI GPU ensures a narrow performance margin if the NV GPU is equal in power. If the NV GPU is weaker than thats when we may have an upset in the performance department. I'd be really surprised if the NV GPU was more powerful that the ATI GPU since ATI really pulled out all the stops when creating it, but thats always a possibility too.


I can't wait till they are hooked upto my TV!!!

TheCovenant
06-01-2005, 04:34 PM
im with you on the animation department. even if the killzone footage was in game ( which sony is swearing up and down STILL that it is), those animations are far from real. No game will do that unless its been developed for over 6 years...and thats still very little time. Killzone 2 has not been in development long enough for that to happen, hell even to pull off the graphics in the video, it just hasnt had the time to do it.

The 360 is a very powerful machine, many developers are admitting that. Hell, many developers are admitting that the 360 is much more powerful than anticipated..."Quote sony europe dev team". If you ask me, im excited. Perfect dark and KAmeo rank high in my anticipation list, along with prey, quake 4, and gears of war. Dont even get me started on elder scrolls 4, 99 nights, blue dragon, and lost odysee. Elder scrolls 4 alone will keep me happy until halo 3. Man, i get giddy just thining about it. WOOT VIDEO GAMES!

OC Noob
06-02-2005, 12:26 AM
im with you on the animation department. even if the killzone footage was in game ( which sony is swearing up and down STILL that it is), those animations are far from real. No game will do that unless its been developed for over 6 years...and thats still very little time. Killzone 2 has not been in development long enough for that to happen, hell even to pull off the graphics in the video, it just hasnt had the time to do it.

The 360 is a very powerful machine, many developers are admitting that. Hell, many developers are admitting that the 360 is much more powerful than anticipated..."Quote sony europe dev team". If you ask me, im excited. Perfect dark and KAmeo rank high in my anticipation list, along with prey, quake 4, and gears of war. Dont even get me started on elder scrolls 4, 99 nights, blue dragon, and lost odysee. Elder scrolls 4 alone will keep me happy until halo 3. Man, i get giddy just thining about it. WOOT VIDEO GAMES!


I refer to this interview when the dev says it's basically a representation...of the game we're trying to make.

That and a million other things, like the character animations, the gun moving out of the way when the creater of the video wants you to see something important, the aim being different to accomidate the camera shot, but still hitting and killing the bad guy, the FP view panning out to catch those large explosions and the ship landing, etc...

I can understand why Sony won't admit it, because its great attention and they really didn't want to get caught with their pants down at E3 and considering they don't even have their machine taped out yet and alpha kits just got sent out (2 months ago) they needed some spectacular movies and got em. They did a very good job of surviving E3 without getting killed like they would have had they come out showing what they really have done.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/616/616591p1.html

"Interviewer: Is the Killzone sequence a fair example of what people can expect from realtime gameplay on PlayStation 3?

Jan-Bart: Yeah, it's basically a representation of the look and feel of the game we're trying to make."

Whisper
06-02-2005, 12:33 AM
but if that is indeed what ingame Killzone will look like.. 360 is doomed

OC Noob
06-02-2005, 12:43 AM
but if that is indeed what ingame Killzone will look like.. 360 is doomed

The thing is, thats not even true nessecarelly (SP?). Just look at the work on Gears of War and other than the unique animations (not sure what the animations look like yet) that looks better than the Killzone vid.

I just read the article in GI and the pics are outstanding. I'm sure they must have some high res screens on the net some where. I haven't seen anything but the movie (much like Killzones) so I don't know if an in game vid is out yet, but the screens look killer.

Those screenies in the mag show fantastic detail, much like the character models and environments in the Unreal 3 engine demo for the PC. Heck, the character models in the screens look even better than the PC demo.

Very cool, I suggest you guys read the article at Gamestop (in store, no need to buy it:D ).


Heres the site, but I don't think they've posted the screenies from the mag yet:

http://www.gameinformer.com/Magazine/

ShaDovV RyDer
06-02-2005, 07:53 AM
Yeah... wtf?
Anyways, I think this CNN guy is right, There will be some disapointment....



with the PS3. :) :)


AMEN!!!

IMO MS is showing us what we can expect at the launch of the Xbox 360 but everything is toned down...A LOT. I watched the E3 G4 Special and on there they said that the 360 games looked like they could have put them on the current Xbox and they are exactly right. The games we saw at E3 were probably running at about 5/5s of the Xbox's power and just 1/5 of the 360's power. I believe J Allard when he said that MS wanted to show people what they will be playing and not hype them up for something they won't see until the end of the 360's life.

The PS3 on the other hand is all smoke and mirrors. Sony got the developers to make the best looking CG film they could make at the time and they asked them to make it look like in game to a normal person. The developers did just that and now every person with half a brain has figured them out.

Remember that its Sony not MS that over-promises and under-delivers. :cool:

thAshAdyOne
06-02-2005, 03:18 PM
to expect everything that they are hyping up will only lead to your disappointment...keep a level head and don't expect for it to wake you up or do the dishes and I believe that you will not be mislead...Just love the 360 for what it is...a sexy machine!

OC Noob
06-03-2005, 01:56 PM
AMEN!!!

IMO MS is showing us what we can expect at the launch of the Xbox 360 but everything is toned down...A LOT. I watched the E3 G4 Special and on there they said that the 360 games looked like they could have put them on the current Xbox and they are exactly right. The games we saw at E3 were probably running at about 5/5s of the Xbox's power and just 1/5 of the 360's power. I believe J Allard when he said that MS wanted to show people what they will be playing and not hype them up for something they won't see until the end of the 360's life.

The PS3 on the other hand is all smoke and mirrors. Sony got the developers to make the best looking CG film they could make at the time and they asked them to make it look like in game to a normal person. The developers did just that and now every person with half a brain has figured them out.

Remember that its Sony not MS that over-promises and under-delivers. :cool:

I agree with everything you said except that the Xbox could run the games they showed for the 360.

At HD resolutions the Xbox can't run any of those games and I doubt it could run them at standard TV res with out a ton of tweaks decreasing visuals, physics, details and map sizes.

One thing is for sure, Xbox can't run any of those textures with its 64 mb of ram, it can't process the physics, it can't handle the detail of most of the games due to processing and ram power.

I think when people get a 360 and are able to see side by side comparisons they will see exactly what I mean.

What we have now is a bit like that crappy Backspin 360 screen shot. It desn't look that good, but it still blows away the Xbox Backspin screen shot.