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360 video service has issues, Gates compares PS3 to brick
Author: Wil HarrisPublished: 24th November 2006
The Video Marketplace is having problems.
Congestion on the Xbox Live network is leading to many paid-for downloads halting arbitrarily and failing to successfully re-download. Unable to get the content, users are phoning Microsoft's support service - and consequently jamming the telephone lines.
MS has acknowledged the problem and says that frustrated users should sit tight - they'll get refunds for the content they haven't received. Users can hit up the Video Marketplace forum or call 1-800-4MYXBOX.
In other news, Bill Gates has said that the big battle between Sony PS3 and the 360 will come next Christmas. Speaking to Cnet, Gates says:
I wouldn't change positions with them [Sony] in a million years. I mean, we know what it's like to be a year late. We feel great about the position that we're in. And, of course, they're going to sell a lot in Japan.
You know, Sony can make 80,000 bricks, and people would buy them. So the real competition--you're going to see the impact of our innovation and all the momentum we have in Christmas 2007. This Christmas, the story is: XBox 360 is going to sell super-well, and they'll sell the rounding error amounts they can make.
Comparing the PS3 to a brick? Ouch, that's fighting talk Billy. Does Microsoft have the power to walk away victorious in 2008? Let us know your thoughts over in the forums.
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Comments (61)
Please, there's no reason to get a PS3 and there won't be any time soon, it's an awfully difficult to program for mess. Plus there is (And still will be this time next year) better games for the 360, I know I'd rather get Gears Of War, Halo 3 and Dead Rising than the one good game that's coming out for the PS3 (MGS4) which might be coming to 360 now anyway because Kojima is teh win and knows when he's chosen the wrong console.
It's only right that Microsoft's Big Bill is bitting back, It's true though if sony made Tird's with sony somehow stamped in to them people would buy em its a fact.......
Can anyone name a PS3-exclusive game that is out now or in the near future that you could point to and say "there's your deal-breaker"? A game that is worth the massive jump in price and all the stress of getting a PS3 right now?
Halo 3.
Tekken and Final Fantasy are just 2 of them. It's true that it's harder to code a
game for the PS3, but after you know how to code for the PS3 it will become
easier after a while right? ;)
Besides that, the PS3 is a lót quieter then the XBOX360, has more arcade-style
games and has a free online-gaming service (even though not everyone thinks
it's good). And on top of that, you don't need to buy external devices to play HD.
The XBOX360 needs an external HD-DVD player and such to be able to do that.
I think that it will be a close win for either one of them next year. XBOX is
US, PS3 is Asia... and in the end Europe will buy them both just as much :)
Bad link, use this one...
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/17
I think people missed what Bill was saying. I don't think he was calling the PS3 a brick so much as saying that Sony could sell 80,000 physical, masonry bricks to fanboys just because it had a Sony logo on it. Those bricks might be handy for throwing through your TV becayse your new PoS3 doesn't play nice with it.
End of the day the PS3 will sell far more than any other console as history shows. Nintendo are struggling to stay in, and useing a new joypad hopeing it will save them. Nintendo should do what Sega did. I can see the Xbox 360 doing MS well but the battle really is between Sony and MS, not Nintendo.
Consoles sold
PS1 = 102.49m
PS2 = 111.25m
xbox = 24m
SNES = 49m
N64 = 32.93m
Game Cube = 21.20.
Numbers do the talking that no fanboy can ignore. Nintendo have been loosing sales since the SNES and should just leave the console business and stick to where it is strong. The handhelds.
Bring on the 360 and ps3 :)
the problem with them videos is they were fakes, i was truly wowed by the old motorstorm and killzone videos. then i found out they werent even real, and were just "Expected graphics" i thoguht sod waiting for that then and bought a 360 a few days later as i could see real games on that that looked just as good.
I wish people would stop saying things like this. As long as Nintendo continue to make a good profit from their consoles (which they have) then why would they stop making them?
However, as far as I'm concerned Sony has already won the battle. Every month since the 360's release the ps2 has beat it in sales, and the ps3 will likely achieve the same thing once the supply and demand hit some sort of equalibrium.
The ps3 has a greater potential to have better game as the developers can develop for two fairly similar consoles. Mainly the both of the systems having hard drives to utilize along with blu-ray allowing the developers to create games to their greatest potential. The 360 on the other hand only has a hard drive comes standard in one of their systems, as the developers want to make the greater profit they will develop for the lesser system. I could go on all day comparing the systems.
I played a demo of motorstorm at target and was pretty amazed, it could have been because I had been playing my friends 360 on a non-hdtv, which was still pretty impressive, but the playing the ps3 in hd was awsome. And I can't wait to get my own ps3.
In terms of who will win the console war, only time will tell what system wins, and we will likely have our answer a year or so from now.
Did the xbox 360?
I'm still waiting to hear a good reason to buy the PS3 even when it matures and gets some decent games. 360 is in a similar boat but its got a year head start, equal hardware specs except for the HD media drive and a better online service.
As far as I can see it, if sony hadn't insisted on the blu-ray then the PS3 could have been cheaper, on time and with far less problems.
The Wii looks like its going to be fun but still not up to scratch.
PC gaming is the only thing which I have been constantly interested in so I'll be sticking with that.
The PS3 is on the edge, either people will buy it because they think it is a great bargain.... or they will say: "scre* this i want a game console, not a blue-ray disc player that has very few and expensive films for it", the BR drive wont do any good for it in terms of game size, 25GB for the expensive single layer blue-ray versus 8.5GB for the less expensive dual layer dvd..... +this
:D then blue-ray is rather useless don't you agree?
The 360 must evolve its services (like the video service here) so it is cheaper and gets more quality, and decrease the price of its hardware and games or else it will die, the dvd drive is enough for now, especially with this.
and the PS3 is more useful than a brick, especially if you want to build a house, it is bigger than a brick, and it heats up so it will be warm all winter, the only problem is the price and the availability. :p
edit:
wikipedia is a good tool
I just recently bought a 360 about 4 weeks ago, and within 48 hours the thing overheated and didnt work properly afterwards, that being said I had to buy some Nyko component to increase air flow in my 360. Will they ever fix the optical drives from scratching discs when the 360 gets moved while in operation. Will we ever see a bigger hard drive?
This christmas is a ****** year for game release dates on the 360 platform, I took a look at my local Gamestop's upcoming release lists and I wasn't very pleased at all, however I think 2 players playing Gears of War on Xbox Live will hold me over for some better games.
Im really hoping Sony sees some serious fallout due to their mishandlings with the PS3, I would really like to see more Sony only games being brought to other consoles, games like Final Fantasy, and Metal Gear Solid.... So Bill if you're reading this (and you probably are) open your wallet this X-mas and buy us some contracts to cross platform these games.
I just have a few things I want to point out.
#1. PS3 is a great bargain for a few reasons: 1. It will likely outlast every other console due to its sheer processing power (look at the N64, it is still fun to play and one reason is because it was incredibly powerful in its day, so games still look half decent and run smooth). 2. If Blu-Ray does become the next standard then you will already have a player for that standard, DVD is an example of this. It was new and expense once but now is available to everyone, the same thing might happen to Blu-Ray. 3. Prices for games are not going up because of Blu-Ray. PS3 titles are the same price as their 360 counterparts. Besides that if I was a game Dev. I would love to have freedom in making my game great and not being limited by capacity. We are already seeing games like Crysis and other new titles taking more than 6 gbs of space, so it is likely that new 360 games will be moving to multiple disks or HD-DVD soon. 4. If you equipped a 360 with a the stuff that a PS3 premium comes with it would cost you a hell of alot more. First you need a 360 premium that costs $500, plus the HD-DVD drive for around $200, plus the WIFI for $130, plus two more hard drives for $130 a piece. Thats a total of more than $1000, and the specs are still inferior. A PS3 on that level costs $660, so it is a bargain. 5. With the PS3 they give you instructions so you can use a standard 2.5" SATA HDD to upgrade storage. This means for the $130 I could pay for 20 more Gbs of storage on my 360 I could buy about 100 Gbs of storage for my PS3, which in my opinion is a hell of a deal (this is for 5400RPM seagate, for 7200RPM I could buy 60 Gbs).
#2 As far as procedural texturing is concerned you are right that using it will allow gaming to take up less space allowing them to fit on a regular DVD. The only problem is that a lot of people making these games are not terribly enthusiastic about changing their ways (look at the lack of multi-threaded apps these days vs. the number of single threaded apps).
#3 As far as making a good house is concerned, I think the 360 would be a much better candidate because it is more boxy, heats up more, and you can change the look of your house anytime by slapping on some new faceplates :D
Yes, there are no must-buy games for the PS3 at the moment, and I won't be buying one any time soon. I do, however, plan to buy one next year (and a Wii!), when Sony's had more time to hammer out any kinks in the console itself, as well as find some more games to put on the thing. ;)
In the mean time, I'll satisfy myself with the 360 I was supposed to get for my birthday but didn't. :(
you are saying that power = fun?
so if N64 is fun because it is powerful then the gay cube is even more fun because it is more powerful, so the wii must be REALY FUN because it is even more powerful than the gay cube.
hmmm and there are people saying that the N64 is more fun than the 360 so in your logic the wii must be lots of times more powerful than the 360.
POWER!=fun
IF!!!!! and if it dies? CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE ANOTHER DISK PLAYER (considering you have the wonderful PSP that is also a player for UMD disks) DEVICE THAT IS ONLY USED FOR GAMES (or not even that)!!!!!!
The PS2 had a DVD player, the DVD has been around since about 1996 and the PS2 was launched in 2000, it was a "cheap" dvd player for the time, and DVDs were a proven technology with all its quirks ironed out and a rather good library of media..... if i buy a blue-ray player i will want something without bugs, and that is a good price/quality/media available.
that is like saying that prices of N64 games were not bigger because of the diskettes.
they are the same price (or not).... for now.
yes i would love the large capacity to fill it up with useless peaces of code, textures and stuff that is not optimized/compressed so it would be easy to say: "hey i filled up this big ass disk with a game, i are so smart".
crysis 6gbs of space are smaller that the capacity of a dual layer dvd.
:|
the premium costs $400, the HD-DVD drive (that you will want if you want to see HD-DVD films, it does not work with games) costs US$100, the WIFI is US$100, the hard drives are US$100 each.... thats 800$, the top PS3 costs US$600.
most of the 360 hardware will go cheaper for sure and this difference will grow smaller.
lets see.... they give you instructions on how to open a PS3 and insert a 2.5" sata hard drive, joe average says "i don't know anything about computers and manuals are for idiots..... i think i will insert it here in this slot with a hammer "
evolution my friend, that is the word, if it wasn't for it we would still be using prescots and agp or even worse, we would still not exist...
in this part you are right except on the part that the 360 has a concavity and if you pile them there would be holes in you wall, and i have heard that the PS3 heats up like the devil but thanks to "smash my PS3" i know it is hard as nails.
I was under the impression that the devs were saying that they don't need the extra space that BR brings to the table, that the BR drive is slower than the '360's...meaing all that data is pretty much worthless unless you keep spinning the disc, and finally that the Cell does F-all in gaming tasks (which are more GPU than CPU anyways). Isn't the GPU in the '360 the as yet to be released R600? And isn't the PS3's GPU the equivalent of a 7800?
While devs may not need it now, it is a nice thing to have the space at their disposal. The Cell is important because with that kind of processing power doing things like real world physics, AI, etc. becomes easier to do and won't bog the system down. As far as the GPU is concerned I did hear the same thing about the R600, but just because 600 is bigger than 520 doesn't make it better. It is more likely that the R600 will never be released PC side, in fact it only makes sense. When have we ever heard of a console graphics chip coming to PC? As far as the PS3's GPU after a bit of research the RSX perfectly matches a 7800GTX 512mb in terms of clocks and transistor count, but it carries 256mb of memory at 700mhz on the PS3. While this may be discouraging the floating point performance of the RSX alone is almost twice that of the 360. After doing a bit more research it looks like the R600 series is coming to the PC but not the R600 in the 360 specifically. After more digging it looks like the 360 GPU is close to an X1900XTX (with 700mhz GDDR3), which is strange considering the TFLOP numbers. So according to the TFLOP inaccuracys either A. Nvidia and Sony have an ace up their sleeve, or B. Microsoft and ATI were lying about the XENOS specs. Either way we will have to see some comparisons before we can judge either.
Links?
its not about now, its about whats upcoming. PS3 doesn't have any games coming about worth lusting over as its simply just launched.
would you enjoy playing FEAR if they brought it out on the amiga?
yes, but lets say they really create a game so utterly envelopped in graphical bliss, or has such a huge universe that even with optimisation and compression it still exceeds 10GB? you have to go one way or the other regarding BR and HD-DVD as it is the future, and since it's reasonably new tech then it has to be pushed forward to succeed.
And if HD-DVD fails then the HD-DVD drive people baught for their 360 becomes just as useless. Simple thing is, we don't know which will win in the Hi-Def race, Sony pushed for what it thinks will be the champion, while MS back the other competitor.
I think the PS3 will simply dominate the market, not just because it's branded by sony (i've taken into account the fanboys), but because it truly is a remarkable piece of gear, and when games start to increase, we will see an absolute sky rocket in PS3 sales.
Slot Loading PS3 fun
Sony: Blu-Ray on PS3
BR vs HD-DVD Fact vs Fiction
Stuffing BR Discs full of Pre-renders
Slower loading than '360 for PS3
HD DVD vs. Blu-ray: who cares?
Xbox 360 HD-DVD Q&A
And can you not with blue ray? (which is why i failed to see the argument in the firsyt place)
interesting links
Programming difficulty is a little bit of a nebulous explanation really, since I don't believe they mean "Its too hard! I can't do it!" I suspect they mean more "We've figured out how to do it, but its going to take twice as long and cost twice as much as it would have otherwise" (except with words like "complete bitch" being thrown about I guess it might be more than twice as much :) ) meanwhile the 360 essentially uses the same backend as a PC, so they can develop one version and with a minor amount of work, get a game that functions on two platforms, which is obviously going to be attractive to them.
It is fun to argue the points though so here I go: Most of the points about "why the PS3 will lose" are pretty moot. Although Procedural Texturing is pretty cool, in that article DXR pointed to, the guy basically says that programming them is extraordinarily difficult. But he also states the Cell's programming difficulties as one reason why the PS3 will suck. But lets go back in time for a minute. All of these arguments....ALL OF THEM...were listed as reasons why the Dreamcast and Gamecube will be so amazing and why the PS2 will be an utter failure. Yes, the Dreamcast did indeed look JUST as promising as the Xbox 360 looks right now. Then the PS2 came along and destroyed everyone. Obviously I can see that the 360 is in a better position than the Dreamcast was, but history does tend to repeat itself. No, I don't think the 360 will be a failure and plunge Microsoft Games into obscurity, but it will take a miracle for them to topple Sony.
Everyone said the PS2 was insanely difficult to program for. That the emotion engine was impossible to work with. Now we have games that look like Shadows of Colossus and Final Fantasy XII. Game developers are crapping out PS2 titles left and right and people have figured out how to make the best of the emotion engine to produce some very pretty games. The same will happen with Cell. It will be hard at first, but when developers and programmers get used to working with the technology it will become easier and more productive.
Everyone said that the DVD drive was useless, and driving up the price of the system unnecessarily. They said that games will never need 4.5 GBs of space, let alone a 9 GB dual layer DVD. Now developers are struggling to fit games onto a dual layer DVD. It is almost ignorant to think that games won't be demanding more and more space as time goes on. Example: Blue Dragon, 360s Japan life-raft, is going to be a 3 DVD game.
Not only that, but when the PS2 was out for 300 dollars people were out spending 300+ on stand-alone DVD players. People who got the PS2 could play their games and watch movies. If Blu-Ray becomes the standard, I already have a player, therefore I can wait for the high-quality stand-alone players to go down to a reasonable price and play them on the PS3 to hold me over. Assuming HD-DVD becomes the media standard, anyone who wants to watch an HD-DVD will either have to spend $250 for one for their 360, or spend that much and more for a stand-alone player. If they buy one for their 360, they are already exc