DMC4 360 & PC bound

[Cognitive Gear]

DMC4 Multi-console confirmed

This is quite interesting. I personally consider this a huge blow to the PS3's exclusive line-up.

[Zilch]

Ouch. Another blow below the belt for Sony.

[Bobtheduck]

Hmm... Yeah, that hurts. It won't necessarily hurt enough to destroy Sony, though. Considering that based on the same amount of Time, PS3 is doing BETTER than the 360 did, and we still have Home, LBP, MGS4, FFXIII, FFXIII vs, Lair, and a total of 40+ exclusives on the horizen...

It's sad, but I'm not too worried.

[Cognitive Gear]

Hmm... Yeah, that hurts. It won't necessarily hurt enough to destroy Sony, though. Considering that based on the same amount of Time, PS3 is doing BETTER than the 360 did, and we still have Home, LBP, MGS4, FFXIII, FFXIII vs, Lair, and a total of 40+ exclusives on the horizen...

It's sad, but I'm not too worried.

[Bobtheduck]

Huh... Ok.

*sigh*

Whatever. It's funny, I think the people at CAA make me so fanboyish because they ride the sony hate train so much. I woudn't be so adamant about supporting the system I like if people didn't feel the need to bash it every other second. And I stand by what I said. I'm not that worried. It's a hit, but not one that will destroy the PS3. Not by a long shot. It was Metal Gear and Final Fantasy that launched the success of the Sony platforms the last 2 generations. Not Devil May Cry. Not Resident Evil. Not GTA, which came much later... Call that spin if you want. I'm looking at history, and history has proven that Sony starts small and ends big. They have a lot of good stuff coming, so I don't see this killing them even though it hurts. Oh, and thank you for being so mature about it.

[Saj]

Hmm... Yeah, that hurts. It won't necessarily hurt enough to destroy Sony, though. Considering that based on the same amount of Time, PS3 is doing BETTER than the 360 did, and we still have Home, LBP, MGS4, FFXIII, FFXIII vs, Lair, and a total of 40+ exclusives on the horizen...

It's sad, but I'm not too worried.

Ive heard rumors that FFXIII and vs would be on the 360 as well. on top of that, MGS4, i think, was confirmed for the 360 as well.

if sony keeps on losing their exclusives, ps3 is going to bomb.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

No mgs4 has not been confirmed for the 360. Although I'm hoping! I don't want to blow 500/600 dollars for one game or two.

[Yojimbo]

On top of this another long time Playstation franchise is headed to 360, Ace Combat. Neither of these are huge blows obviously but Sony losing a good number of it's previous exclusives like Mercenaries 2, Assassin's Creed, Virtua Fighter 5, and GTA does not bode well for their credibility no matter how you look at it.

And I will not be surprised at all if Metal Gear and Final Fantasy eventually make it over to 360.

[Cognitive Gear]

Huh... Ok.

*sigh*

Whatever. It's funny, I think the people at CAA make me so fanboyish because they ride the sony hate train so much. I woudn't be so adamant about supporting the system I like if people didn't feel the need to bash it every other second. And I stand by what I said. I'm not that worried. It's a hit, but not one that will destroy the PS3. Not by a long shot. It was Metal Gear and Final Fantasy that launched the success of the Sony platforms the last 2 generations. Not Devil May Cry. Not Resident Evil. Not GTA, which came much later... Call that spin if you want. I'm looking at history, and history has proven that Sony starts small and ends big. They have a lot of good stuff coming, so I don't see this killing them even though it hurts. Oh, and thank you for being so mature about it.

You're welcome. While I will admit that there is a "hate-train" in internet land; I don't think it is limited to Sony. It's not that there are more Sony haters, it's that they are better armed right now. There has been an over-abundance of bad news coming from Sony over the last year. It's what happens when neither your consumers nor your developers are happy with you.... Just ask Nintendo about the N64. Also, I'm fairly certain that I could type out recent news about Sony and it would be considered "hating".

Metal Gear and Final Fantasy, as you said, are what launched the success. In other words, what started it. But what carried it the rest of the way? It was your other 3rd party exclusive support that carried it the rest of the way. It can be said that Halo and Xbox Live started and carried the original Xbox.... and you can see what kind of a market share that got. The PS3 certainly won't die or fail, but we are continually obtaining more evidence that it is not the next NES or PS2.


For Bob's reference:

Spin: To present an incident in a particularly slanted or biased manner.
Which is what you did. If calling you out on it makes me "immature", that's a-ok with me.

[Nate]

For the record, Hironobu Sakaguchi says that FFXIII is being developed on the White Engine, which is multi-platform. So the possibility of FFXIII being on the 360 is very real. And given that Square-Enix has already stated their lack of confidence in the PS3 (concerning Kingdom Hearts 3), I'd say that we can probably take FFXIII off of the "exclusive" list.

[Cognitive Gear]

No mgs4 has not been confirmed for the 360. Although I'm hoping! I don't want to blow 500/600 dollars for one game or two.

I'm in the mood for image replies... I don't know why...

[Mr. SmartyPants]

For the win brother, for the freaken win.

[Tommy]

I don't want to blow 500/600 dollars for one game or two.

It's amazing how your bring that up in almost every video game thread MGS4 is brought up.

I mean I agree with you, but.....well, it's just old news that Ps3's are expensive.

Price aside, even if the Ps3 was 200$ things aren't looking good in the land of Sony. I cross my fingers for something.

[Yojimbo]

It's amazing how your bring that up in almost every video game thread MGS4 is brought up.

I mean I agree with you, but.....well, it's just old news that Ps3's are expensive.

Price aside, even if the Ps3 was 200$ things aren't looking good in the land of Sony. I cross my fingers for something.

It's still a relevant point though regardless.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

It's still a relevant point though regardless.

It will always be a relevant point until it drastically lowers in price.

[Dyne]

You get what you pay for with a PS3. I know the price tag is very troubling to gamers, but considering whats in the box, its not overpriced.

Anyways, onto the subject at hand. This seems...awsome. I am already planning on getting a 360 for Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Eternal Sonata, and possible other RPGs. DMC 4 on the 360 may be a deal breaker for me. And if FF XIII comes out for 360, oh, I will definitely get it.

It sucks for PS3, though, losing all its exclusive titles.

[Bobtheduck]

For the record, Hironobu Sakaguchi says that FFXIII is being developed on the White Engine, which is multi-platform. So the possibility of FFXIII being on the 360 is very real. And given that Square-Enix has already stated their lack of confidence in the PS3 (concerning Kingdom Hearts 3), I'd say that we can probably take FFXIII off of the "exclusive" list.

Unreal 3 engine and Havok are also multi-platform, but Gears of War will never see the light of day on the PS3, and Motorstorm will never be headed to the 360... That really doesn't prove anything, except that Squ'eenix wants to bring the online component of FFXIII's entourage to the 360. Square will stick to their guns. So, yeah, you don't have anything there. FFXIII as a whole is already not exclusive to any system, but each individual part of it IS.

Also, Kojima just requested dual layer Bluray... That means he's gone over 25 gigs. Considering he filled up the DVD-9 with Snake Eater, this doesn't seem too off.

Ikimasu, you called it spin because you were saying I was trying to say losing an exclusive didn't matter, am I correct? I never said it didn't matter. I said it didn't worry me much. There's a difference. It hurt like heck, but there is constantly news about good things coming for PS3, and the PS3 is hardly doing badly. Like I said, it's outdoing what the 360 did in the same period, and even broke launch records in Europe. 600,000 units sold (reported by BBC, not by Sony) in the first few days is hardly something to scoff at. I just get tired of the Doom and Gloom people give about this, or cries of victory.

Plus, Capcom lied to the PS3 fans out there. It said repeatedly it would be exclusive. Now, thing is, they've done this before. They said RE4 would stay on the cube. The cube version is even the better version, but they ported it to the PS2 because they didn't care about their core audience, they wanted to make more money. Capcom has never remained loyal to a platform, with the exceptions of the Megaman games in the 8 and 16 bit days, and DMC in the last gen. This is in line with what Capcom does. And it's still pretty scummy, that many people preordered DMC4 on PS3 because of their promise, which they broke. If they had claimed multi-platform before and stayed with it, or if they hadn't outright promised this was staying on the PS3, it woulnd't be as bad. It would be normal business for Capcom. That's 2 times they've lied and cheated their core audience. Capcom has lost a lot of my respect.

Now, Konami on the other hand went exclusive to 360 with the Bemani line. For that, I don't fault them. Why is that different? Because of Singstar. Sony sorta screwed them over by taking a portion of Konami's market out from under them. Of course, Singstar is arguably a better product than Karaoke Revolution, but Sony put themselves in direct competition with Konami and the exclusives to 360 are really a move of vengeance, and one I rather agree with. See the difference?

Spin that. Everything I said is true. About the PS3 actually doing rather well. About Capcom being low for what they did. About Sony being low for Singstar. Claim it's spin all you want. Maybe it's just perspective? Nah, has to be spin.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

You get what you pay for with a PS3. I know the price tag is very troubling to gamers, but considering whats in the box, its not overpriced.

In what sense? Graphically? That's negligible to the vast majority of the population who doesn't own HD. I've seen both on SD tvs and the graphical difference is... minute. Tiny. As for graphics, why shoud that even matter? It's the games that win it. Sony concentrated entirely on power this round forgetting what actually won them the last round: the games. They created an affordable system with a lineup of games that was consistantly good on every release period throughout its popular lifespan. Don't get me wrong, the X-box was fantastic, but I feel that it was mostly a precursor of great things to come with its second generation, the 360. Sony won by the games they had, not by their processing power. Companies are attracted to two things main things (if you ignore money greasing palms and deals and that sort of thing) when looking at where a game goes: Ease of programming and unit penetration. If there are a lot more units of one system it makes more sense to sell a big franchise to that system. Why? You'll be able to sell more units.

i... well. There was a rant about price in there too, but I think I came off too strong as it was. I didn't actually intend that to turn in to a massive rant. I'm... egh. I'm really sorry, guys.

[Bobtheduck]

Sony won by the games they had, not by their processing power. Companies are attracted to two things main things (if you ignore money greasing palms and deals and that sort of thing) when looking at where a game goes: Ease of programming and unit penetration. If there are a lot more units of one system it makes more sense to sell a big franchise to that system. Why? You'll be able to sell more units.

i... well. There was a rant about price in there too, but I think I came off too strong as it was. I didn't actually intend that to turn in to a massive rant. I'm... egh. I'm really sorry, guys.

One Last edit: These are my reasons for believing the PS3 is worth sticking with. There are 3 different types of ideas represented in this post... Opinions, stances, and predictions. Opinions are neither right nor wrong. Stances can only really be right or wrong. Predictions will be proven right or wrong when the right amount of time has passed. I stand by my predictions based on history and based on what I've seen so far. My opinion is that the PS3 is a worthwhile machine. My stance is that it hasn't been doing badly at all.

Allow me to answer your rant, then.

1. Ignore the greasing of palms means we ignore many of the exclusives that Microsoft has scored...

2. Sony is working hard on devving new tools to make it easier to dev for the PS3. They discussed the new set they were working on at GDC. It's called edge. They see a problem with difficulty in development, and they are trying to address it. Not being a programmer, I can't say whether that will be enough. Since I doubt anyone in this thread has ever programmed for a Sony system, and no one has touched Edge yet, no one here can really comment on it either, except that they realized it was difficult and are working to fix that.

3. It is a value for what it offers because it offers a lot. Easily expandable Harddrive (much cheaper than the proprietary Microsoft drives), no need to hack it to install a secondary OS, a bluray drive (because while not everyone has an HDTV now, eventually everyone who owns a TV will own an HDTV, or they'll be street bums or dead... or not watching TV)

4. Sony understands that its games that sell the system. It has been out for 4 months, and honestly has a better lineup in that same time than the 360 did. People seem to have amnesia about PS2. Does anyone here remember the PS2 launch? I sure do. I've laid out the comparisons between the two before, and a member of another forum really helped my comparison by quoting time:

Time magazine, Monday, Oct. 30, 2000

"Even before this Thursday's official launch, Sony has lost goodwill, not to mention sales, for PlayStation2 with its glitchy product rollout. The company's recent announcement that it was cutting the number of PS2s available on launch day by 50% was a cruel blow to parents who had promised Junior one of the first units. And it is a headache for the 20,000 retailers selling PS2s--many of which began taking orders six months ago. The stores are bracing for hordes of irate customers."There will be people lined up in front of the doors," sighs Dan DeMatteo, president of Babbage's Etc., the nation's largest specialty video-games retailer. Babbage's has prepaid orders from five times as many customers as it will have units for this week.

Sony won't explain what went wrong. Sony Computer Entertainment president Kazuo Hirai will say only that PlayStation2 is a "very complex machine that requires a lot of components." But the guessing in Japan is that the company botched the production of graphics chips.

No modem is included with PS2, which puts it behind Sega's Internet-ready Dreamcast. But PS2 does have one feature parents will appreciate: it is backward compatible, meaning it can play the original PlayStation's 800 existing games.

But many of the most eagerly anticipated titles, like Metal Gear Solid 2 and the Bouncer, won't be available until spring at the earliest.

The early word on the playing experience--outside of Sony's launch party--is not particularly enthusiastic. "There is nothing on the PS2 that I've seen that gave me that jaw-dropping feeling I got with the Sega Dreamcast last year," says Dan Clark, 29, CEO of a New Hampshire credit union and an active gamer. Madden NFL 2001 is good, he says, but no better than games currently available on Dreamcast.

Part of the reason for the underwhelming array of games, gamemakers say, is that PS2 is hard to program for. "The PS2 is definitely more powerful than Dreamcast," says John Carmack, the multimillionaire, ponytailed master gamer behind legendary shooters like Doom and Quake. "But it's less convenient to extract performance from it."
"The PlayStation2 doesn't live up to Sony's hype," says Carmack. "It's just a next-generation machine, and they were acting like they'd invented the steam engine."

But the biggest prize of all lies in turning gaming consoles into broad-ranging entertainment centers. Sony acknowledges this future by calling PS2 not a game console but a "computer entertainment system." And Sony, with its wealth of consumer-electronics devices and enormous movie and music businesses, may have the most to gain by branching out. Count on it to use PlayStation2 in the future as a platform for an array of synergistic nongaming applications, from editing digital movies made on Sony camcorders to downloading Sony-brand music and music videos.

"PlayStation2 seems to be no more than a DVD player that can play games," grumbles Mike Roberts, an 18-year-old gamer from Missouri who says he won't be buying a PS2. "It should be the other way around."

Time, and many others, proclaimed doom and gloom for the stuff that happened during the PS2's launch, at 300 dollars which was seen as way too expensive for a console. It was glitchy and unit failure was high (more akin to the 360 than the PS3, which has a much lower unit failure rate) It had a terrible launch lineup, and there were games on the Dreamcast at its launch that looked better. The dreamcast was also easier to develop for, and had a big head start and by no means was a terrible machine. Trust me, I have a dreamcast, it's a solid machine. It was 2 games that really through things to the PS2's favor. Final Fantasy X and Metal Gear Solid 2. After that was really more of a chain reaction. This gen, there's even more on PS3 to help it along. There have been some good games in the first 4 months, though none particularly up my alley as for genres. There are also some great things coming, with Lair to hit in June, Heavenly Sword to come sometime this year, MGS4 hopefully hitting in September, and FFXIII to come early next year. A price drop is inevitable. Anyone who says there won't be one (including Sony reps) are either lying or naive.

To add to that, PS2 was the first system to use DVD. It was many people's first DVD player, but guess what? PS3 is ending up even MORE people's first bluray player. And with BD-J, the benefits of bluray aren't simply "high def visuals" but an increase in interactivity. DVD menus are low tech now, and a great degree of interactivity is going to be introduced with the next gen of movie players. That, and eventually standard def releases will hit bluray, with hours and hours and hours and hours of footage that doesn't have to be reduced in quality can be fit on one disc. Besides that, the number of people with HDTVs is only going up. Not down.

This is happening identically to the PS2 launch vs dreamcast. Actually, not identical because the PS3 is doing better than its opponent. I'm not counting the Wii, of course, because the Wii has done much to create its own audience and the hardcore gamers with wii will almost certainly one day end up with another next-gen console, and likely not one of Nintendo design.

So... PS3 is doing well. More games are coming. The price will drop. DMC4 won't matter as much as many think it will. It's already looking to be a repeat of PS2 days, so I'm at least moderately confident. Never completely. You can't be 100% sure in it at all. There are always curveballs.

I only say all of this because I honestly believe the system can come out on top. Slow starts are Sony's forte, and they haven't been doing bad this time around, all things considered. Even with the loss of two exclusives. They will have more. And more will be lost, on both sides. That's the nature of the game.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I think one of the things I failed to mention was that the PS2 was an overwhealming success despite the fact that it was apparently a very difficult system to program for. It was not a developer favorite, and yet because of said palmgrease and because of the incredible penetration of the system in the market, it was able to be a success. The latter is difficult because of the price of the system (A PS3 will never be a good investment for me. Not because of my opinion, but because of my current pay, my future pay, and how often I get to play videogames anymore. I know that my situation is also just not that uncommon). If they lower the price to... say the price of the 360, more people will be willing to make the jump simply because they feel they've already shelled out for something of the same prioce once, why not do it again? These companies are already taking hits on each console they sell. The machines cost more than they're being sold for. This is the way the videogame industry has always functioned. The idea is that the money is made back by selling games, but if people are able to look at a popular franchise, see that it is for a cheaper system that they already own then they will be less likely to purchase said system.
Were the PS3 the price of the 360, it would be hard for me, but I would probably swallow my pride and purchase a system... It's still not a good investment for me, but its a better one. I think it would also help if Sony hadn't spent the last year and a half being condescending jerks to the people buying their products. They need to find new people to represent their company.
Edit: So, the reason price always comes up is because although it is one of the few things wrong with the system, it is in many ways big enough to overshadow pretty much every plus. Many games exist for both. What few at this point don't, I can live without, and I don't have the money and will not for several years, to buy an HD television, so the graphical difference will never be enough for me... Not that I ever cared for graphical power. Graphics are flash. They can enhance a game, but there is far too much reliance on them for being the only facet of a game. Good plots, good characters, good gameplay. That is the trinity of game quality.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Also, because EA has regained ties with Microsoft, and the new GTA games (One of the biggest, if not; THE biggest franchise) will be on the 360. I say Sony lost some exclusivity support from these two companies. EA having the sports games, and Rockstar having GTA. Despite their low popularity in Japan, they are very popular in the states.

I think the gamecast went over this a bit a while back.

So if Sony wants to succeed, I say they have a tough battle. They are loosing some of their most popular franchises, and they seem to be loosing popularity. If they want to win, they need to do a total 180.

[Cognitive Gear]

Ok. Bobtheduck- To be clear, I called it spin because instead of discussing the topic at hand you diverted it to facts and numbers that really have nothing to do with this. To be honest,. reading your initial reply was like reading something that Sony's (or any company regarding their own console, for that matter) PR would say. Which is not something that anyone should be proud of.

Unreal 3 engine and Havok are also multi-platform, but Gears of War will never see the light of day on the PS3,[/url]
Those are entirely different. Both of those engines were designed to be licensed to other developers by companies who have histories of licensing their engines. Unless Square-Enix is throwing it's hat into the engine licensing ring, it is very different.

Capcom has never remained loyal to a platform, with the exceptions of the Megaman games in the 8 and 16 bit days, and DMC in the last gen. This is in line with what Capcom does. And it's still pretty scummy

Capcom is a company. They need to make money to survive. If doing what's best for your company in order to stay out of the red is scummy, then every company on the face of the earth is scummy.

That's 2 times they've lied and cheated their core audience. Capcom has lost a lot of my respect.

I hope you realise that this is the exact logic that is running through the minds of "Sony-haters" right now. Only for them it's about 12 times.

1. Ignore the greasing of palms means we ignore many of the exclusives that Microsoft has scored...

Yes. Because a market penetration of 10 million units, and dev tools that are second to none have nothing to do with what system you decide to make games on. (Sarcasm, if you didn't catch it.)

2. Sony is working hard on devving new tools to make it easier to dev for the PS3. They discussed the new set they were working on at GDC. It's called edge. They see a problem with difficulty in development, and they are trying to address it. Not being a programmer, I can't say whether that will be enough. Since I doubt anyone in this thread has ever programmed for a Sony system, and no one has touched Edge yet, no one here can really comment on it either, except that they realized it was difficult and are working to fix that.

I heard about this. It made me extremely happy to see that Sony is doing things to fix their mistakes. Sony had gotten used to designing things from a hardware perspective instead of a software perspective, and it earned them the wrath of the devs, which Sony rightly fears. This is the type of things Sony did when the original Playstation came out that made me excited about it. I hope to see more of it in the future.

4. Sony understands that its games that sell the system. It has been out for 4 months, and honestly has a better lineup in that same time than the 360 did.

While this is true, I still to this day don't understand what good it does to compare the here and now to the past. When someone goes out to buy a console, they don't think , "Which console has a better game line-up at launch?". They think "What games do I want to play when I take it home today?".

Dreamcast v PS3/ 360 vs. PS3 comparison:

I could see this comparison back in the early 360 days, but not so much anymore. When the Dreamcast launched, internet play was entirely new to console gamers and had little to no bearance on what console they chose. Also, the Dreamcast didn't have a Gears of War, Crackdown, or Lost Planet. Dreamcast had some amazingly great games, but none of them sold like these. Also, DVD had already won the format war months before the PS2 came out. The DVD/Blu-ray comparison is rather invalid.

Actually, not identical because the PS3 is doing better than its opponent

Man, what? How can you say that? 360 has been trouncing the PS3 in sales since it launched.


For your reference, I am not responding to you because I hate Sony, or to irritate you. I do this because I think it is important that we as gamers think as consumers, not as fanatics who will follow their console of choice to the end.

So if Sony wants to succeed, I say they have a tough battle. They are loosing some of their most popular franchises, and they seem to be loosing popularity. If they want to win, they need to do a total 180.

They are trying. They are already working to create better dev tools and have recently filed a patent to sell a PS3 with an 80GB HD in order to increase the perceived value.

[Bobtheduck]

Ok. Bobtheduck- To be clear, I called it spin because instead of discussing the topic at hand you diverted it to facts and numbers that really have nothing to do with this. To be honest,. reading your initial reply was like reading something that Sony's (or any company regarding their own console, for that matter) PR would say. Which is not something that anyone should be proud of.

No... I addressed the topic at hand, losing DMC4, and addressed the OTHER topic at hand, it being a massive blow to Sony. I defended what I like and answered BOTH topics. I admit, I do tend to sound like a PR person for what I like... Anime, games, DDR... Whatever, that's because I think through these things and I believe I can be optimistic here. What would it have taken to be anything but spin for you? Hmm... "Oh, crap, Sony's gonna go under! They'll never catch up now! Oh, woah is me, I need to go pick up a 360 now, Microsoft has won" Hmm?? I'm still a fan of the PS3, and not simply due to "company loyalty" but because I honestly like the platform.

Capcom is a company. They need to make money to survive. If doing what's best for your company in order to stay out of the red is scummy, then every company on the face of the earth is scummy.

Hmm... I disagree with you here. I think this went out of the realm of "what every company does." Besides, if they believe they've got a huge seller here, the top sellers create their OWN audience. MGS2 and FFX did for PS2, Halo did for Xbox, Gears did for 360... Of course, maybe they didn't have confidence in their own abilities? Hmm... I'd go on, but I don't want another _____ response. **Ok, I had to change this becaue I put the name of a certain well known, infamous website, and it was censored with asterisks... It made it look like I said something else, something that would have made a lot more people upset... I didn't. It was just the non-vulgar name of a vulgar website**

I hope you realise that this is the exact logic that is running through the minds of "Sony-haters" right now. Only for them it's about 12 times.

Sony never promised to be less than 600 dollars... In fact, the only thing I can think of in this regard is the BC in Europe... Taking out the Emotion Engine was pretty scummy. I've been upset about this since it happened. Other than that, I don't see Sony "betraying" anyone in this whole mess.

Dreamcast v PS2/ 360 vs. PS3 comparison:

I could see this comparison back in the early 360 days, but not so much anymore. When the Dreamcast launched, internet play was entirely new to console gamers and had little to no bearing on what console they chose. Also, the Dreamcast didn't have a Gears of War, Crackdown, or Lost Planet. Dreamcast had some amazingly great games, but none of them sold like these. Also, DVD had already won the format war months before the PS2 came out. The DVD/Blu-ray comparison is rather invalid.

Back in 2000, market penetration of DVD was still pretty low, overall. Not a lot of people had DVD players. The PS2 was for many people a cheap DVD player that, oh yeah, played games. It was the combination of 2 things that a lot of people wanted. I know that's what it was for me. My PS2 was my first DVD player. I talk to a LOT of people who say the same thing. So, actually, it is a valid comparison. Of course, the format battle has an effect on this, as does lack of HDTV penetration worldwide, but as I've pointed out, there are benefits to the HD formats other than movies in HD. There are interactivity benefits as well as space benefits. So, I think it's a perfectly valid comparison. PS2 was one of the big forces that got DVD into people's houses.

I would by no means say, however, that 360 is doing as bad as the Dreamcast did. I will only say that it is very similar for PS3 to the early days of PS2, and this sort of thing happened in both of PS3's predecessors. There are different factors this time, like Gears and especially like the Wii, though I maintain that Wii created its own audience and that won't affect the next gen systems once prices drop. Yeah, I know Sony denies a price drop as severe as with PS2, but... Let's be honest, Sony isn't as stupid as people think... They need to make money, too... They need to get market penetration, so a price drop will hit, and eventually it will be below the 200 mark.

Man, what? How can you say that? 360 has been trouncing the PS3 in sales since it launched.

I'm referring to the same time periods. In its first four months, PS3 did better than 360 did in its first four months. In other words, it's catching up. Slowly, but it is catching up. Plus, the equivalent of Gear for the PS3 is still to come... It has some big titles that haven't hit yet. The huge sales behind the 360 didn't really start until gears.

For your reference, I am not responding to you because I hate Sony, or to irritate you. I do this because I think it is important that we as gamers think as consumers, not as fanatics who will follow their console of choice to the end.

Well, I guess it was my "thinking as a consumer" that moved me to Sony in the first place. I used to be a hardcore Nintendo fan. It was Final Fantasy 8/tactics and MGS that changed my mind. That was a fight among Sega, Sony, and Nintendo. My hatred for Microsoft, I have to admit, runs much deeper than my favorite games. I USED to be PC gamer, in addition to being a console gamer. I loved games on my computer, and there was a HUGE variety of games on it because pretty much anyone could make a game on the computer, but something happened when Wolfenstein hit... First it was Wolfenstein 3d, no biggie, a new idea, a game from first person. Then it was friends who told me that First person games would be the only games, because why would you want to play a game that didn't put you directly "into" the game... I also liked TBS games like Civilization. Then the RTS games hit... Games like Age of Empires... Warcraft... Starcraft... The billion and 10 FPS games... MMOs... Any and all freedom in the PC gaming world went to zero, as you essentially had 4 choices... RTS, FPS, American RPG, or MMO...

When Xbox hit in 2002, I knew what was coming... The effects of it are already strong. They wanted to court the PC game makers into coming to consoles... To flood the consoles with the same 4 genres that choked out PC gaming... It doesn't just affect Xbox fans, either... What is the top selling game on the PS3? The first game to reach over 1 million in sales? That's right... It's an FPS game... I don't want that to go any further... I like the wider variety I find on consoles and I don't want to see that go away because people start getting into FPS games too much, so that's all devs will put out...

My new hatred for microsoft came this gen... With the Vista launch... Some of the things I've been hearing about that, and this whole "Games for windows" campaign... Making directX10 only work on Vista... It's really not right... Forcing people to "upgrade" to a slower running system so they could play games that would honestly work just as well on the previous system. See, that's another thing I like about Sony's system. There are still great games coming out for PS2, just like the PS1 at the PS2 launch... They still support and make the PS2. You aren't forced to upgrade if you don't want to be left completely in the cold. You are with the xbox. They are trying to push for the same thing with Windows... I dont' necessarily think that's wrong, at least not with the xbox (with windows, I think it's very wrong), but I do prefer Sony's position in that regard.

They are trying. They are already working to create better dev tools and have recently filed a patent to sell a PS3 with an 80GB HD in order to increase the perceived value.

The "patent" wasn't a patent, it was a request to the FCC to alter their license. The license change was for a new antenna to fix problems with bluetooth on upcoming systems. The brief mention of the harddrive isn't proof of a new configuration, just something they put there to give themselves the option. Really, since the harddrive on the PS3 is easily swapped out with harddrives that are much cheaper than you could get for the 360 (if you get the 20 gig for 500 bucks, you can swap it out for a 500 gig for an extra 200 bucks) there isn't much reason to create another set, unless their are other upgrades in it.

It is far too early in the game to proclaim doom and gloom. I'm by no means claiming victory yet, it's just that it isn't doing as bad as you say. This loss of DMC4 (which came AWFULLY close to the European launch...) isn't "the last nail" or anything like that. It's painfull, but not disastrous.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I USED to be PC gamer, in addition to being a console gamer. I loved games on my computer, and there was a HUGE variety of games on it because pretty much anyone could make a game on the computer, but something happened when Wolfenstein hit... First it was Wolfenstein 3d, no biggie, a new idea, a game from first person. Then it was friends who told me that First person games would be the only games, because why would you want to play a game that didn't put you directly "into" the game... I also liked TBS games like Civilization. Then the RTS games hit... Games like Age of Empires... Warcraft... Starcraft... The billion and 10 FPS games... MMOs... Any and all freedom in the PC gaming world went to zero, as you essentially had 4 choices... RTS, FPS, American RPG, or MMO...

I feel ya. There are TONS and TONS of RTS/FPS/MMO/AmericanRPGs out there for the computer. However, most of them are mediocre. And you will notice that the most popular ones with the largest fanbase tend to apply with a select titles.

You don't see that many people playing Medal of Honor nowadays right? Nor do you with Brotherhood in Arms. But people STILL play Counter-Strike, Starcraft, EVE, World of Warcraft, etc. The ones that don't "come and go" are the ones that are really worth investing in.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I bought my mac back in October and since I've been a thorough Mac fanatic. My PC died, and I didn't feel much reason to get it back together. I thought, well, all my gaming is console anyway. I'll be fine. Now, though, I miss my PC. I built it myself back in highschool, so obviously I have a lot of emotional attachment to it. I've recently started jonsing for all my old PC games and a few new ones. I'm gonna try and rebuild it for just that reason.

[Bobtheduck]

I bought my mac back in October and since I've been a thorough Mac fanatic. My PC died, and I didn't feel much reason to get it back together. I thought, well, all my gaming is console anyway. I'll be fine. Now, though, I miss my PC. I built it myself back in highschool, so obviously I have a lot of emotional attachment to it. I've recently started jonsing for all my old PC games and a few new ones. I'm gonna try and rebuild it for just that reason.

Hmm... I wish I had Windows 95 and Dos again, so I could play some of my favorites that don't work on XP, but thats' next to impossible... Man, they would have run so fast if I ran it on this computer, and with 95 instead of XP? Whew... they would have been lightning fast... I scoff at people who think gaming's golden age is gone, but I do have to say the golden age of variety in PC gaming is long gone. Unless you count emulators... heh.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

XP can run most of the games that ran on 95. It has a built in emulator for previous windows Operating Systems. Only one I could never get to work was a british native game.

[Cognitive Gear]

No... I addressed the topic at hand, losing DMC4, and addressed the OTHER topic at hand, it being a massive blow to Sony.

I tried to make it clear that it was my personal opinion. That relates to my personal list of games that I'm interested in that are on PS3, which has now been reduced to 3. Losing any of those is a major blow, IMO.

Hmm... I disagree with you here. I think this went out of the realm of "what every company does." Besides, if they believe they've got a huge seller here, the top sellers create their OWN audience. MGS2 and FFX did for PS2, Halo did for Xbox, Gears did for 360... Of course, maybe they didn't have confidence in their own abilities? Hmm... I'd go on, but I don't want another _____ response.

I'm curious as to what you mean by "____ response". Any website that has been filtered is most likely something that I would take as an insult. Regardless, this is not beyond the realm of what other companies have done. Capcom needs to maximize their profits so they can continue making games. I could go on, but it would be pointless as you seem to be quite upset and probably won't be convinced anyways.

Sony never promised to be less than 600 dollars... In fact, the only thing I can think of in this regard is the BC in Europe... Taking out the Emotion Engine was pretty scummy. I've been upset about this since it happened. Other than that, I don't see Sony "betraying" anyone in this whole mess.

I never said that Sony promised anything in regards to the price of the PS3. There are numerous occasions on which Sony has promised one thing, then delivered another. The list is quite long, and again, I won't waste my time listing them since nothing I say will convince you that Capcom is not some "evil corporation".

Back in 2000, market penetration of DVD was still pretty low, overall. Not a lot of people had DVD players.

But it had way better penetration than blu-ray, and didn't have any competitors

Also, for your reference, the PS2 launch at the same price of the original Playstation, 299$. I don't think anyone should have had doubts about weather or not people would buy it. If they did, they obviously weren't looking at their own recent history.

I will only say that it is very similar for PS3 to the early days of PS2, and this sort of thing happened in both of PS3's predecessors. There are different factors this time, like Gears and especially like the Wii, though I maintain that Wii created its own audience and that won't affect the next gen systems once prices drop. Yeah, I know Sony denies a price drop as severe as with PS2, but... Let's be honest, Sony isn't as stupid as people think... They need to make money, too... They need to get market penetration, so a price drop will hit, and eventually it will be below the 200 mark.

I'm fairly certain that means that this launch is almost nothing like the PS2 launch.

I'm referring to the same time periods. In its first four months, PS3 did better than 360 did in its first four months. In other words, it's catching up. Slowly, but it is catching up. Plus, the equivalent of Gear for the PS3 is still to come... It has some big titles that haven't hit yet. The huge sales behind the 360 didn't really start until gears.

I know what you were relating. It still doesn't have any bearance when someone walks into the store to buy a console.

Well, I guess it was my "thinking as a consumer" that moved me to Sony in the first place. I used to be a hardcore Nintendo fan. It was Final Fantasy 8/tactics and MGS that changed my mind. That was a fight among Sega, Sony, and Nintendo.

Yes. The original Playstation was the consumer's choice, not the fanboy's choice. The things Sony did to promote the PS1 to both devs and consumers were fantastic. Legendary even. Unfortunately success seems to make companies lazy.

The "patent" wasn't a patent, it was a request to the FCC to alter their license. The license change was for a new antenna to fix problems with bluetooth on upcoming systems. The brief mention of the harddrive isn't proof of a new configuration, just something they put there to give themselves the option.

My bad. I only quickly skimmed through the article. Regardless, I think that we can expect an 80GB configuration sometime in the future. Sony needs to do something, anything, to make the console worthwhile to people without HDTV's.

It is far too early in the game to proclaim doom and gloom. I'm by no means claiming victory yet, it's just that it isn't doing as bad as you say. This loss of DMC4 (which came AWFULLY close to the European launch...) isn't "the last nail" or anything like that. It's painfull, but not disastrous.

It is going badly right now. It's not any kind of "nail in the coffin" as Sony will have a decent marketshare no matter what they do. Like I've said before, I don't think the PS3 is going to be another PS2 or NES. It will be successful. It does, however, have great potential. Sony just needs to step up to the plate, admit theri mistakes (to themselves, not openly) and fix them. They seem to be on the right track with their new dev tools. Hopefully that is the first of many steps they will take. I want the old PS1 era Sony back.

Anyways, I really don't plan on replying any further. These debates are both pointless and take up too much of my time. I will continue to examine the trends and effects different things have on the industry I hope to enter, so I can best choose how an indie developer can get into the industry.

[Nate]

The things Sony did to promote the PS1 to both devs and consumers were fantastic. Legendary even. Unfortunately success seems to make companies lazy.

I think the bigger problem here is their enormous success with the PS1 and PS2 caused their egos to inflate and gave them the feeling of, "We're Sony, we can do whatever we want and people will buy our products anyway!"

Which admittedly, IS sort of true, but it's a horrible way to run a business.

XP can run most of the games that ran on 95. It has a built in emulator for previous windows Operating Systems.

Most, but not all. I have a couple of Windows 95 era games that just will not run on XP (or run very poorly) even in the emulator.

I think this went out of the realm of "what every company does." Besides, if they believe they've got a huge seller here, the top sellers create their OWN audience.

It hasn't gone outside the realm of what every company does. This has been around even in the days of NES. It's just that Nintendo used shady business practices to force companies to develop exclusively for the NES (the whole "two year exclusivity" deal they had going on). Even so, it wasn't until the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox era that multiplatform games really took off. There are tons of multiplatform games, I don't see how this is outside of the realm of normal business, I really don't.

Of course, maybe they didn't have confidence in their own abilities?

I'd say the issue here isn't that they don't have confidence in their own abilities, but in the abilities of the PS3. Again, the PS3 isn't doing bad by any means. It really isn't. But it's still far from dominating the market, and I think Capcom knows that, and releasing a PS3 exclusive could be risky in their eyes. You can say "But if the game is good enough, it will sell!" Well, not really. It all goes back to the price of the PS3, which has been harped on enough admittedly, but still is a valid complaint.

[Bobtheduck]

XP can run most of the games that ran on 95. It has a built in emulator for previous windows Operating Systems. Only one I could never get to work was a british native game.

It can't run DOS games at all... At least, I've never been able to get them to work. And I've had a number of 95 games that didn't work... Final Fantasy VII, for instance... Not that FF7 is a huge priority for me (playstation fan and all) just an example of one that won't work. I'm more likely to get FF7 running smoothly on a PS1 emulator than I am the computer version.

There are some older DOS games that don't work. Civilization and Colonization, as 2 examples of games I really liked. Colonization was a great game that never saw any sequals. There are a lot of smaller games on DOS that I loved that I won't ever be able to play again... That list was quite large, and I don't even think I'll be able to remember most of them. It's been a long time since I had DOS.

It hasn't gone outside the realm of what every company does. This has been around even in the days of NES. It's just that Nintendo used shady business practices to force companies to develop exclusively for the NES (the whole "two year exclusivity" deal they had going on). Even so, it wasn't until the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox era that multiplatform games really took off. There are tons of multiplatform games, I don't see how this is outside of the realm of normal business, I really don't.

It's because they had promised multiple times. They made all sorts of statements about it only being PS3. It's not a matter of multiplatform games being around. It's a matter of them not being upfront about it, lying about it, and, oh yeah, making that announcement right as the European PS3 launch hit. It was practically timed to try to take a chunk out of Sony's sales. Sales which, of course, draw more devs to make games for the system which, of course, makes the system worth something which, of course, makes those people who have already invested in a PS3 who were waiting for exclusives like this which they were promised more than a little upset because it means doubt in any future release because the other companies swearing exclusive may be just as big of liars as Capcom.