What are you going to do if XBOX 2 is released in December?

[Robflare]

I, for one, am not sure what I will do if the XBOX Next is released in December. I pre-ordered my first XBOX and had the patience to stay away from PS2. I'm not sure I will pre-order a maching for this December without having a better understanding of how the specs/games will stack up against the competition.

[Sammael]

Um.... Buy it..

[MerimacHamwich]

I'm personally going to wait until all of the official system specs are released. I will then study them and compare them, which will bring me to a decision, along with which games are released, on which console to buy.

Basing off of this generation, and what little is rumoured of next generation, I am slightly leaning towards PS3 right now.

[Robflare]

Sorry, it took me a couple of minutes to put the poll together fellas. I'm stuck on this one though. I've loved my XBOX since the day I picked it up with my bundle/huge controllers and all. But, the main reason I went with XBOX was that I knew it was the superior system. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Will PS3 owners be complaining of watered down graphics from XBOX Next ports?

[MerimacHamwich]

That's an interesting thought Rob. It makes me have a little more confidence in the PS3 infact. The rumour mill has it that the PS3 will have better specs, becuase it is coming out after the Xenon. So, if the PS3 does have better specs, does that mean the majority of games will actually look really good? Will that mean that EA will develop awesome games? Kinda makes you wonder. Maybe Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo owners will all be satisfied with the level of visual quality. Consistency across the board? Interesting thought for sure.

[Sammael]

You're acting as if PS3 is coming out 2 years after Xbox 2. Microsoft only wants a 6 month jump or so on Sony. By the time Xbox 2 is released PS3 will already be well into production and would be a HUGE headache for Sony if they decided last minute to change anything.

The thing that EA said was that the PS3 may be faster mhz wise then Xbox2 which means nothing as far as graphical power goes. Besides EA doesn't know, they don't even have a dev kit for Ps3 yet, where as they already have Xbox 2 kits.

[Robflare]

Yeah, a lot of thought goes into it. The other risk is that if you wait without preordering, you may have a long wait for the next shipment of machines. There's a girl in my office that wants to buy an XBOX and they have been no where to be found for the past month. We all remember the PS2 shortage--which definitely helped me decide to wait for an XBOX instead.

[Robflare]

You're acting as if PS3 is coming out 2 years after Xbox 2. Microsoft only wants a 6 month jump or so on Sony. By the time Xbox 2 is released PS3 will already be well into production and would be a HUGE headache for Sony if they decided last minute to change anything.

The thing that EA said was that the PS3 may be faster mhz wise then Xbox2 which means nothing as far as graphical power goes. Besides EA doesn't know, they don't even have a dev kit for Ps3 yet, where as they already have Xbox 2 kits.

Putting all that aside, I could watch your Avatar for hours.

[MerimacHamwich]

Well, Sony isn't going to go by what Microsoft wants now are they Sam? Microsoft might only want a 6 month jump, but Sony could come out even later. As well, your statement that the dev's already ahve XBox 2 dev kits just goes to support that notion. This could be a bonus for the Xbox next and give it more of a user base. However, it will also be a bonus for the PS3, and give it more time to come out as a superior product.

As well sam, MGHZ does matter. If you're into any PC stuff this will be apparent to you. You may have the graphics processor that supports these high level shader languages, but if you have a slow CPU, then you will have to turn down the graphical settings anyway.

Seriously, it's kinda of pointless talking about the next generation of consoles with most poeple on a given console site. Whichever console the site is a supporter of, most poeple will be fanboys of.

[Sammael]

You think that Sony would give MS that much advanced time just to upgrade their product. Which means they'd have to go back to the drawing board. Sony won't risk that.

The technologiies will be very close in power.

[MerimacHamwich]

Ofcourse they will be close, just like this generation is close. I am not implying that Sony will wait until the XBox 2 is released before they draw up their specs. However, like you said, Xbox 2 already has dev kits out, and PS3 doesn't (although I think they do. Remember my brother saying something about EA having them.). So that means Xbox 2 already has a good idea of what the final product will be, but the PS3 is more up in the air than the XBox 2. So modifications like processor power, and shader paths etc can be altered.

6 months is more than enough time for that kinda of change. You know the computer world has a 6 month cycle on new products right? Generally new graphics cards come out every 6 months. As well, Sony doesn't have to worry to much about user base, their's is already huge. Letting Microsoft come out with the Xbox 2 first isn't going to do too much damage to their sales. When the average gamer sees the Name PS3 on shelves, they will be hyped. Not to mention their legions of fanboys.

Ofcourse, it could defy logic and Sony could be stupid, as they have in the past. They could release a technologically inferior product than the next Xbox. However, I think they won't.

[Shadow20002]

Just wait and see what games is on the console.

[LynxFX]

I didn't even flinch when the PS2 was released since PC's already blew it out of the water. I had no interest in the Xbox either until it was released then I spent 2 weeks trying to track one down. Ended up spending $600 to get it since everyone forced you to buy it as a bundle. Won't do the same thing this round. I'll wait it out and see what games each system has as well as other functions.

PS3 is unofficially coming out in Spring of 06. So that isn't too far from the launch of the next Xbox. Everyone is pretty much already locked into what their hardware is going to be so there won't be any last minute changes to try and 'best' the competition. Eitherway, I think they are going to be very close in specs and unlike the current gen, no one is going to have to 'dumb down' ports to one console or another. And as for those paper specs, the PS3 has already raised the virtual bar pretty high with the cell processor and next gen Nvidia GPU and combination of a Blu-ray drive. We don't know what MS has up its sleeve yet.

E3 is going to be fun.

And as for MHZ, it does and it doesn't matter. In the PC world, that used to be all that mattered, but that has changed. An AMD CPU with lower mhz could beat an Intel CPU with higher mhz, and vice versa. So their architecture, chipset, memory all have drastic affects. If you saw my post last week you saw that the intial specs of the Cell processor have it at 4.6ghz. That's freakin fast but we have no idea how it compares to an AMD or Intel cpu. It could be faster, the same, or slower. It is a completely different architecture.

[MerimacHamwich]

Good post Lynx.

My brother has just informed me that the "Revolution" is going to use HD-DVD. Yeah...

[Sammael]

I hope MS goes with Blu-Ray... Just seems so much better then HD-DVD.

[AlphaRaptor]

Im gonna want to see PS3's specs before I buy and Xbox 2. If the PS3 is weeker than XB2, its no duh, if the PS3 is that much more powerful to actually SEE the difference in its games, I MIGHT go with PS3. But, I dunno, it will take soooo much to rip me away from Halo and Xbox Live.

[Robflare]

XBOX Live is really the clincher. We know it works and that the games are awesome, so I'm most likely sticking with XBOX. I'm not really into the fantasy,adventure,RPG games. I'm more FPS/Sports, so XBOX really appeals to me on that level as well.

[Spaztic]

My big clincher is going to be blu-ray vs hd-dvd and Harddrive support. I don't want damn memory cards ever again.

[super_ryu]

I'm going to see how it stacks up against its competitors (PS3 mainly) then buy it when the price goes down

[Draco2003]

From what I have read, MS is trying to get a 6 month jump on Sony. This could be a MAJOR disadvantage for Microsoft, because they are trying to rush it. But hey, if it turns out like Halo, then rush ahead.