Thread: What you do while playing console

Originally Posted by indigo0086

What else is there to do but play the game. Sometimes I hover from my seat to my computer and look on gamefaqs, many times I just play the game.

Cheater!

Well, since you can hold the Wiimote with one hand, I
can do whatever I want with the other.

Whatever. I. Want.

Yes. Even that.

Playstation and xBox kids, well, can't.

Oh, and Will Wright also sees the Wii as the only true
Next-Gen platform.

The console industry must be through its deepest crisis if we look at Wii (or any other console currently on the market) as Next-Gen. Standards for this word are usually a little higher.

However, Will Wright does two things very well; he's a great game designer and, because our societies are structured this way, that also makes him a good opinion maker.

Originally Posted by ethic

Yes. Even that.

This wasn't as much of a problem back in the day of vibrating controllers. :/

Originally Posted by abachler

I think more people are getting tired of consoles in general. Thier price tags are approaching (low end) computers, while their performance and game selection is not.

The PS3 has extremely good performance compared to a computer. PS3 clusters with Linux are currently being used for scientific computations. There are 250,000 Folding@Home PS3 users.

Originally Posted by Bubba

The Wii is and has always been a gimmick. Gimmick's don't last in technology but they do have their time. I think Wii's is coming to a close.

Many people don't really care about technology and if their console uses state of the art shaders. They want to have fun, and technology is only one aspect of gaming.

Originally Posted by abachler

Computers are slowly killing the console market

I've heard that for a very long time. You might have a point, though. Nintendo is as far as I know the only company currently making a profit from their consoles. In the long run, Sony and Microsoft won't continue making consoles only to lose money.

Originally Posted by abachler View Post
I think more people are getting tired of consoles in general. Thier price tags are approaching (low end) computers, while their performance and game selection is not.

Originally Posted by Sang-drax

The PS3 has extremely good performance compared to a computer. PS3 clusters with Linux are currently being used for scientific computations. There are 250,000 Folding@Home PS3 users.

The PS3 has really has some impressive hardware, even for its high price tag, but its going to take a while before people start to make games that use it to its full potential. Wii's are a gimmick, my friend got one and I was bored with it after 10 minutes. I'd rather have a DS.

As to do with the folding@home project the PS3 cell processor is ideally suited to it because stream processors are designed to handle large chunks of contiguous data fast. While stream processors have great potential for graphics stuff like ray-tracing, they are a trade off with flexibility. For doing stuff like, say, AI where you may need to get tiny bits of data from all over the place stream processors are not so well suited.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Sang-drax

I've heard that for a very long time. You might have a point, though. Nintendo is as far as I know the only company currently making a profit from their consoles. In the long run, Sony and Microsoft won't continue making consoles only to lose money.

I thought they made their money from licensing the games. I think they will be perfectly happy to sell consoles at a loss, as long as they are competing, and they make their money back elsewhere. Its like printers; they sell the unit at a loss knowing you are then going to have to buy ink for it.

The PS3 isn't as good of amachine for gaming as the 360,
according to this guy, who is actually a multi-console developer.
But, whether you agree with his outlook on the console or not,
he does have some interesting points. The only people that
will be able to take full advantage of the console are probably the
Sony-funded products with huge-ass budgets.

"Ok, fine, but the cell is like, super powerful"

In theory, sure, but in reality it doesn't work out that way. Game code simply doesn't split well across multiple processors. You can probably find a way to split a few things off fairly easily - put the audio on one processor, animation on another; but generally the breakup is always going to leave several of the SPUs idle or underutilized. On top of that, it's usually not CPU speed that restricts the visuals in games - it's fill rate.
...

I suspect a small number of PS3 only developers will optimize the hardware to do something cool. However, this will be an exception to the rule, and will likely involved game designs that are specifically designed for the hardware and funded by Sony. If those will prove to be fun or not is another question.

http://jbooth.blogspot.com/2007/10/p...-and-spin.html

But, I don't have the technical knowledge to offer an opinion
on the specs of the PS3. I do know that I've read about a lot
of developers not liking it. Maybe you guys can read that.


Oh, and Will Wright also sees the Wii as the only true
Next-Gen platform. And I'm willing think his opinion has
to mean something, considering the guy is responsible
for one of the most successful franchises ever.

Somebody asked me what I thought next generation meant and what about the PlayStation 3 was next generation. The only next gen system I've seen is the Wii – the PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of the last, but pretty much the same game with incremental improvement. Bu tht eWii feels like a major jump – not that the graphics are more powerful, but that it hits a completely different demographic. In some sense I see the Wii as the most significant thing that's happened, at least on the console side, in quite a while.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology.../26/willwright

omg and SPORE IS COMING TO WII!

(sorry for the triple post, but I had to respond to
everyone's comments).

You know we do have an edit post button.


And somehow I think Spore on a console would be far less complex than Spore on a PC. This is given that what I saw from the initial demo would be extremely difficult to pull off on a very high-end PC.

Consoles have their worth and I don't think they will ever completely disappear because they address a niche area of the gamer market that PC's cannot address. However there will always be PC's and PC games will always be the forefront of graphics, AI, and computing technology. Consoles come 'as-is' and are getting quite expensive. For all that money you could nearly put together a very good PC mobo, CPU, and RAM combo. I see very soon when in the attempt to match or outdo the PC consoles become about as expensive as new PC's. Technology is not cheap and even the console creators cannot outrun the price of new hardware.

As far as not being in touch with the industry I highly doubt that is true of the members of this board. Perhaps we are more in touch with the retail side of it since we are the ones buying games. I myself know many, many gamers both on console and PC. The number one excuse I hear from my console friends about not having a PC is that it is too complex and difficult to play games on. Once I show them that is bunk they are soon off to buy their own PC fixing it up with the latest and greatest hardware. Consoles have caused games to go backwards in my opinion. Now we have fixed save points and the like in PC games. Isn't that an invention from the 1980's and 1990's PC games??? When I have a 180GB hard drive the last thing I want is for a game to limit where and how many times I can save. So you can get away with certain things on the console but please don't attempt to put those same limiting ideas into my PC game. But what do I know I only own about 280 PC games so perhaps I'm out of touch.