What are the Real differences between consoles?

bugs

noodler wrote: »

However, I will agree with Overheal regarding hardware reliability. Nothing, bar the odd printer, has even physcially broken for me on a PC. No matter, how many CDs, DVDs etc that I rip the laser never burns out in particular.

Depends on the quality of the components. Console components suffer a great deal of problems, from bad quality to badly thought out cooling or design.
The PS3 for instance, is a console that has a life cycle that sony maintains is 10 years, i can't see many of the early machines making it anywhere near 10 years.
Though i suppose they never said the console would last 10 years, just that it will be supported that long!

citizen_p

wii is radical new thinking...... and sh!t
xbox is kind of inbetween .....(copied avatars from wii) but is still up there cos good games and community.
red ring of death is a load of sh!t though


playstation community is fairly ok but not amazing... only reason.....only about 10 people world wide have mics...... which is needed for console games.

Kernel

One's a great console, but it breaks after a while, and the company deliberately crippled it's media capabilities to sell more products.

One's a blu-ray player.

And one's a gamecube with a less useable controller.

That's it in a nutshell lads. I await your thanks.

noodler

Kernel wrote: »

One's a great console, but it breaks after a while, and the company deliberately crippled it's media capabilities to sell more products.

One's a blu-ray player.

And one's a gamecube with a less useable controller.

That's it in a nutshell lads. I await your thanks.

are ppl still trying to pass the ps3 off as nothing but a blu ray player?

smooch71

Kernel wrote: »

One's a great console, but it breaks after a while, and the company deliberately crippled it's media capabilities to sell more products.

One's a blu-ray player.

And one's a gamecube with a less useable controller.

That's it in a nutshell lads. I await your thanks.

You'll be left waiting.

Sounds like you don't know what you're talking about.

Kernel

smooch71 wrote: »

You'll be left waiting.

Sounds like you don't know what you're talking about.

Don't I? I've been a gaming nerd since the C64, owned most consoles up to and including the 3 mentioned. And a PSP and DS. I speak the harsh truth amigo.

360 is great, but faulty ****ty manufacturing from M$ who won't allow my hi-def xbox to play proper hi-def codecs. RROD everywhere.

Sony sucks for games. (PS3 and PSP.. although PS3 is improving)

Wii is a gimmick. Not much more powerful than a gamecube with a gimmicky controller which until recently didn't even behave as most were initially led to believe.

Now, why do you think that I don't know what I'm talking about? And why do people get so defensive about consoles? The last console I had any genuine love for was the Dreamcast... SNES before that.

Overheal

Oh yeah: How has that Wiimotion+ been going?

gizmo

Kernel wrote: »

Don't I? I've been a gaming nerd since the C64, owned most consoles up to and including the 3 mentioned. And a PSP and DS. I speak the harsh truth amigo.

360 is great, but faulty ****ty manufacturing from M$ who won't allow my hi-def xbox to play proper hi-def codecs. RROD everywhere.

Sony sucks for games. (PS3 and PSP.. although PS3 is improving)

Wii is a gimmick. Not much more powerful than a gamecube with a gimmicky controller which until recently didn't even behave as most were initially led to believe.

Now, why do you think that I don't know what I'm talking about? And why do people get so defensive about consoles? The last console I had any genuine love for was the Dreamcast... SNES before that.

While I wouldn't be so harsh as to say you don't know what you're talking about, there are still glaring inaccuracies in the above post.

First off, it's MS, not M$. Using the latter makes you look neither cool nor intelligent. The 360 is also not lacking support for "high definition codecs" it lacks support of certain containers which are used to store video and audio. Case in point, the 360 supports the widely used H264 codec however it does not support the mkv container which is used by certain rippers. Instead one must transcode it into an appropriate container which the 360 does support, such as mp4. Finally, the RROD problem has been getting smaller and smaller thanks to the later revisions of the console. I would say the vast majority of current issues are confined to either launch or soon after launch consoles. Personally I've had mine for nearly 2 years now and haven't had any problems with it, as have several of my mates.

The PS3 does not "suck for games" either as there are some great exclusives to be had for the console as well as several multi-platform games which are on par with their 360 counterparts. Can't speak for the PSP unfortuantely but bringing a handheld into the debate is a little bit unfair when you're stacking it up against the PC.

Finally, the Wii may be seen as a gimmick by many due to the insane amounts of shovelware available for it, however, that does not mean it should not be lauded for some of the great games on the console. Sure a lot of them are first party Nintendo titles but that's been an issue on most Nintendo consoles for the last few generations.

Note, this isn't me getting defensive about consoles, as I said in a post above I'm a long term PC gamer who still does a heck of a lot of gaming on said platform and who has only jumped back onto the console train this generation, but if we're going to have a discussion about this then we need to keep it accurate or else it'll just degenerate into another fanboy riddled mess.

As for Wii Motion+ Overheal, sales have been pretty strong for a peripheral which is only supported by six retail games thus far. Personally I'll be waiting for Red Steel 2 to see how it can be used properly in-game, especially considering how loose/sloppy controls was one of the major downfalls of the first game.

Retr0gamer

This article here examining the differences between the 360 and PS3 versions of ninja gaiden 2 pretty much sums up the strengths and weaknesses of both consoles with the game excelling in different areas in each case. It still needs to be taken with a pinch of salt considering the 1 year gap between the 360 and PS3 release.

I find it kind of interesting that the PS3 is beaten quite conclusively by the 360 in polygon output and alpha blending techniques because in the PS1 it was excelling in polygon output and alpha blending techniques which really helped convince people that the PS1 was a much better console than the opposition.

A few annoying things that I keep hearing from uninformed people that I'd like to say my piece on. The PSP is far from crap. My main grief with it is that the battery life is awful and the controls are uncomfortable for certain games. It certainly doesn't lack in great games. It has a heap of excellent games just compared to the wealth of amazing software on the DS it just can't compete.

Also say that the Wii has no good games is just ignorance. If you sre looking for the latest PES or Gear of War beater then the Wii isn't the place to look but the system does have a lot of very good games on it that just aren't mainstream and haven't been pushed. It can't compete with the PS3 or 360 but if you are willing to seek out the good games then you will be rewarded. I for one can't wait to play Muramasa: Demon Blade.

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I find it kind of interesting that the PS3 is beaten quite conclusively by the 360 in polygon output and alpha blending techniques because in the PS1 it was excelling in polygon output and alpha blending techniques which really helped convince people that the PS1 was a much better console than the opposition.

It never ceases to amaze me how much "blacker" the PS3 is compared to a 360.

Retr0gamer

Oops forgot the link
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ninjagaiden2-faceoff-article

smooch71

Kernel wrote: »

Don't I? I've been a gaming nerd since the C64, owned most consoles up to and including the 3 mentioned. And a PSP and DS. I speak the harsh truth amigo.

360 is great, but faulty ****ty manufacturing from M$ who won't allow my hi-def xbox to play proper hi-def codecs. RROD everywhere.

Sony sucks for games. (PS3 and PSP.. although PS3 is improving)

Wii is a gimmick. Not much more powerful than a gamecube with a gimmicky controller which until recently didn't even behave as most were initially led to believe.

Now, why do you think that I don't know what I'm talking about? And why do people get so defensive about consoles? The last console I had any genuine love for was the Dreamcast... SNES before that.

With respect, the title of the thread is what's the difference between the consoles. Not who can slate them the best.

Last night I finished Uncharted 2, and after playing a game like that, it's very hard to take a sweeping statement like "Sony sucks for games" seriously.

allanb49

It's nice to see a nice educated thought out adult talk on this subject rather than the usual fanboy stuff

eldin

I think all three current consoles are excellent in their own right.

Wii is great fun (and motion+ is a nice improvement btw) with a few people and has a few cracking single-player games - metroid, twilight princess etc. Its entire premise is completely different from any other console in history, it didn't aim for traditional gamers and has been a runaway success (sales figures and profits speak for themselves). I'll have more gimmicks like that please.

XBox has absolutely beautiful games and has the best catalogue of games of the three. It also has the most comfortable controller of the lot. It has the advantage of familiar architecture and decent development tools so shouldn't be any shortage of good games.

PS3 has some incredible games - anyone who bleats on about how 'hardcore' a gamer they are while claiming it sucks needs their head examined. WipeoutHD, Gran Turismo Prolog, Uncharted 2, SF4 etc. Its also only getting into its stride due to everyone having to get their heads around the new architecture, and I reckon we will see some more amazing games on it as more devs get used to it.

TomCo wrote: »

http://beautifulpixels.blogspot.com/2008/08/multi-platform-multi-core-architecture.html

This helps explain the differences between the architectures of the major consoles around at the mo.

The image for PS3 on that link looks wrong. I'm not sure if the PS3 uses a custom one but regular Cell processors have 9 cores: one PPE - 64-bit powerpc main core, and eight SPE's - 128-bit processors that take jobs from the PPE and executes them.

The PS3 has pretty limited memory, so each SPE has a local store and a DMA controller to stream data from either main memory or other SPE's local stores. Its the amount of stuff happening in parallel plus the unusual memory management that make the ps3 tough for developers.

Overheal, no offense or anything but I disagree with almost everything you wrote.
Consoles will never get more than replaceable hard drives as that would mean deviation of target platforms for developers and extra development costs. PC and console gaming are not converging, publishers are just trying to push crappy money spinners from the console world onto pc gamers by taking away some of the freedoms pc gamers have.
I think the consoles are stomping pc gaming pretty horribly the last couple of years, and the number of gamers with powerful pc's is tiny compared to the console install base. I still prefer PC but some of the annoyances are starting to get to me, so find myself at the consoles more and more.

gizmo

eldin wrote: »

The image for PS3 on that link looks wrong. I'm not sure if the PS3 uses a custom one but regular Cell processors have 9 cores: one PPE - 64-bit powerpc main core, and eight SPE's - 128-bit processors that take jobs from the PPE and executes them.

The PS3 has pretty limited memory, so each SPE has a local store and a DMA controller to stream data from either main memory or other SPE's local stores. Its the amount of stuff happening in parallel plus the unusual memory management that make the ps3 tough for developers.

Nope, that's correct. The Cell in the PS3 has 7 active SPUs with one used by the console's OS, hence there are 6 there for developers to play with. The other SPU is disabled to improve yields of the chip.

You're almost correct with the inherent programming difficulties too, the main problems faced by developers are the obviously new architecture to play with but also the memory bandwidth issue within the console and the graphics card which is inferior to that of the Xenos GPU found in the 360. As has been seen though, offloading some graphical work to the Cell has worked wonders for many devs, just look at the likes of Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2 to see what concentrated development on the platform can yield.

Retr0gamer

PS3 games can look amazing but the games really need to be made to the systems strengths. The PS3 can't pump out the polygons like the PS3 or do as many elaborate alpha blending effects but as seen with Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2 they can take the same approach that Metroid Prime did on hte gamecube. The low resolution textures and lower polygon counts in those games are disguised by excellent use of shaders that the 360 hasn't a hope of pumping out which effectively negates the lower resolution texture problem and adds a whole lot more depth to textures. The PS3 is also very good at handling HDR effects and shadows which can really add to the look of a game were if the 360 were to do them compromises will have to be made. Also good use of art assets can work wonders, the elaborate and varied architecture of Killzone 2 and uncharted 2 will always look better than higher polygon but cut and paste levels as seen in Halo 3.

Jazzy

for me, the pad and a smattering of games and thats it

Kernel

gizmo wrote: »

First off, it's MS, not M$. Using the latter makes you look neither cool nor intelligent.

I'm not trying to sound cool or intelligent. My ego is perfectly healthy thanks very much. I say M$ because they are a greedy corporation who are more interested in making money by selling more copies of Media Centre software by crippling what would be a great multimedia machine. Instead I have to buy a popcorn hour.

Plus their attitude to homebrew stinks, when the 360 has already been pirate hacked for years. And they don't know how to manufacture a reliable product.

eldin wrote:

PS3 has some incredible games - anyone who bleats on about how 'hardcore' a gamer they are while claiming it sucks needs their head examined. WipeoutHD, Gran Turismo Prolog, Uncharted 2, SF4 etc.

None of those games are incredible. Same **** with better graphics eldin. No killer apps there, but the 360 beats the snot out of PS3 for game selection.

Sorry to upset people, but my point is all 3 consoles have a lot of problems. I hate them all bar the 360, and that keeps breaking.

Otacon

eldin wrote: »

Uncharted 2

Kernel wrote: »

No killer apps there

Wrong, just wrong tbh.

N-line

Well, xbox360 is for now only, and ps3 is kinda "step to future" max traffic allowance of games in xbox is 10gb and in ps3 is 25gb (i'm not sure i'm right) but i'm sure that ps3 have more allowance, so therefore you will be able to play more realistic and better games and etc etc

Retr0gamer

N-line wrote: »

Well, xbox360 is for now only, and ps3 is kinda "step to future" max traffic allowance of games in xbox is 10gb and in ps3 is 25gb (i'm not sure i'm right) but i'm sure that ps3 have more allowance, so therefore you will be able to play more realistic and better games and etc etc

The size of the games has nothing really to do with it. With the compression available today you will hardly ever see a game fill up the 4.7GB or a 360 disc let alone the 7Gb of a DVD 9. A lot of PS3 exclusives do come close to filling a 25Gb blu ray but thats because they use uncompressed sounds and textures. If compressed they would fit on a 360 disc easily. If you were to fill a PS3 Blu ray with a game with the same compression as a 360 game the game would be huge and the amount of time and money needed to create the game and art assets would be ridiculous with little hope of the game even breaking even. It also the size on the disc doesn't mean that games will look or play better. You can have the most gorgeously high res textures on a disc but the PS3 is not going to be able to output 100's of them in a massive 3D world with out turning into a slideshow. There's also the fact that the blu ray drive is very slow at accessing information leading to worse load times than on the 360 and meaning it's less suitable to streaming (offset a bit by HD installs).

eldin

gizmo wrote: »

Nope, that's correct. The Cell in the PS3 has 7 active SPUs with one used by the console's OS, hence there are 6 there for developers to play with. The other SPU is disabled to improve yields of the chip.

Ahh, that makes sense. The diagram still looks one short but I'm guessing its not showing the hypervisor core.

Cheers for that link Retr0gamer, interesting reading.

Kernel wrote: »

None of those games are incredible. Same **** with better graphics eldin. No killer apps there, but the 360 beats the snot out of PS3 for game selection.

I can see where you're coming from but it sounds like you're bored with games in general tbh. What racing game won't be like others before at this stage: better graphics, sound, gameplay and a good feel to it is what I tend to look for. The old wipeouts rocked, new one rocks more.
Uncharted2 feels a lot like the original Tomb Raider but way way better. I'd definatley put it in the incredible category.
If you want innovative new games I'd put wii and ds top of the list.
Homebrew-wise they all try to lock it down and probably get pressured by game publishers in order to keep piracy down. Even if there are pirate game available they still have to look like they're doing something about it. Cant blame them really.

gizmo

Kernel wrote: »

I'm not trying to sound cool or intelligent. My ego is perfectly healthy thanks very much. I say M$ because they are a greedy corporation who are more interested in making money by selling more copies of Media Centre software by crippling what would be a great multimedia machine. Instead I have to buy a popcorn hour.

Actually without the relevant codec packs Media Centre doesn't support MKV, OGM or several other open source containers either. Which brings us back to the original point of consoles not being PCs but approaching some sort of middle ground. Oddly enough I even made reference to it becoming some sort of gaming Popcorn Hour above.

Kernel wrote: »

Plus their attitude to homebrew stinks, when the 360 has already been pirate hacked for years. And they don't know how to manufacture a reliable product.

Whether it's been hacked or not doesn't mean they have to support it. I'm all in favour of homebrew but when it's a mask for the obvious purpose of piracy then it should be avoided.

Kernel wrote: »

None of those games are incredible. Same **** with better graphics eldin. No killer apps there, but the 360 beats the snot out of PS3 for game selection.

While you could argue that some games such as Killzone 2 and Resistance 2 are just the same old formula repeated with better graphics, you can't argue with something like Uncharted 2 which takes tried and trusted elements and implements them almost flawlessly. Simply looking at the reviews should show you what a great job they've done.

briany

On the phenomenon of Consoles becoming more like PCs that's all very well and good but they are not there yet, and i have yet to see a console's web browser that can even come close to the functionality of what you would get on a PC. Consoles really ought to remain the simpler option as it's a big part of their appeal IMO but I suppose you need to move with the times as well.

I remember when I got a SNES for Christmas, it was simply a matter of opening the box taking out the console, connecting the joypad, power and AV cables, bang in the game and voila I was playing Super Mario All-Stars!
Fast forward seven years to getting an Xbox and having to malarky around with setting the time, and setting up a user profile before even being able to start Halo!:mad: At least you could play music on it though but no DVD support without a peripheral? Bulls**t on that!!! Ah, now I remember why I am now a PC guy.:)

BopNiblets

Things will always get bloatier, technology will never get simpler, look at mobile phones today compared to back in the 90s, consoels will get more and more feature packed to keep up with the other guys who are crammin more and mmore features in aswell!
WHEN WILL THE NIGHTMARE END?

briany

BopNiblets wrote: »

Things will always get bloatier, technology will never get simpler, look at mobile phones today compared to back in the 90s, consoels will get more and more feature packed to keep up with the other guys who are crammin more and mmore features in aswell!
WHEN WILL THE NIGHTMARE END?

Maybe when someone is pushed over the edge on Christmas morning during a family shouting match resulting from not being able to sync up the latest console to the Wi-fi? I could see that happening.......

LookingFor

The REAL difference is the developers.

There are technical strengths and weaknesses to both of the HD consoles.

I think Sony excels on the developer front though. They've a good stable of developers who are very technically adept, meaning they have a steady stream of great looking games that take advantage of the system.

MS hasn't made nearly the same investment in games software - ironically enough given their core is in software/os. Rare and Bungie aren't big technical wizards (Rare is better than Bungie here, but not as relatively good as they used to be IMO). They don't have that same diversity of developers who can make their console shine vs PS3 in the same way Sony does. The best looking stuff on 360 is made on a multiplatform engine.

PS3's technology is great, but its developers are its real strength, and I think over the last year in particular they've done a lot to advance PS3 and at least give the impression of greater power, even if really under the hood the difference isn't THAT great.

jaykhunter

The way I view it, the PS3 has much higher specs than the Xbox. It's a beast of a machine. Problem is, it's much more difficult to code games for it.

The Xbox is more of a "natural" successor to the last generation, and PS3 have gone a different techological route to push the envelope further. The 360 is much easier to code games for, so even though it's techonologically inferior, the graphics are maximised, so the two end up looking pretty much identical.

That is a huge friggin' blow for Sony. They *should* be leagues ahead of the Xbox since their hardware is superior. It's really selling itself short.

I imagine that with time, the PS3 will get easier to code for (as developers get to grips with the machine) and will begin to show higher-res textures than the Xbox. So maybe in 5 years you will notice the PS3 versions of games looking better.

Anyway, right now, i'd just look at what exclusives you want, they're both good.

Wii can f-off!!!

Retr0gamer

jaykhunter wrote: »

That is a huge friggin' blow for Sony. They *should* be leagues ahead of the Xbox since their hardware is superior. It's really selling itself short.

I imagine that with time, the PS3 will get easier to code for (as developers get to grips with the machine) and will begin to show higher-res textures than the Xbox. So maybe in 5 years you will notice the PS3 versions of games looking better.

The thing is the PS3 technology isn't better than the 360's. They are both better in different areas but Sony made a huge mistake in not giving the graphics card enough memory bandwidth. You say that the PS3 will start to show high res textures but it's actually the 360 can can technically pump out more higher res textures thanks to it's 10mB eDRAM. The PS3 is slightly better with shaders which can be overlaid on top of the lower res textures to give them the illusion that they are higher res. As far as I can see both consoles are pretty much on par. I've been very disappointed in the PS3. It was out over a year after the 360 yet it's only really on par with that console. Compare that to Gamecube and Xbox, both of which came out a year after the PS2 and wiped the floor with it in terms of power.

gizmo

LookingFor wrote: »

MS hasn't made nearly the same investment in games software - ironically enough given their core is in software/os. Rare and Bungie aren't big technical wizards (Rare is better than Bungie here, but not as relatively good as they used to be IMO). They don't have that same diversity of developers who can make their console shine vs PS3 in the same way Sony does. The best looking stuff on 360 is made on a multiplatform engine.

Well you also need to realise that most of the high profile first and third party Sony studios have been signed to the publisher since before the launch of the original XBox. In that respect I do feel MS should be playing catchup a lot better than they have been thus far, however, outside of the likes of the Lionhead and Rare purchases, they've been relatively low key in this area.

LookingFor wrote: »

PS3's technology is great, but its developers are its real strength, and I think over the last year in particular they've done a lot to advance PS3 and at least give the impression of greater power, even if really under the hood the difference isn't THAT great.

Hmm, this is similar to your first paragraph and although it may seem like splitting hairs I think it's more accurate to say that it's the fact that they have more developers working exclusively for the console that is helping it shine.

jaykhunter wrote: »

The way I view it, the PS3 has much higher specs than the Xbox. It's a beast of a machine. Problem is, it's much more difficult to code games for it.

The Xbox is more of a "natural" successor to the last generation, and PS3 have gone a different techological route to push the envelope further. The 360 is much easier to code games for, so even though it's techonologically inferior, the graphics are maximised, so the two end up looking pretty much identical.

That is a huge friggin' blow for Sony. They *should* be leagues ahead of the Xbox since their hardware is superior. It's really selling itself short.

This is quite incorrect actually, as has been mentioned several times around these parts while the Cell is a more powerful CPU than the Xenon in the 360, the Xenos GPU in the latter console is far more advanced. This has been the primary cause for the differences in multi-platform games we've seen in recent times and is also the reason that the best looking games on the PS3 have been leveraging the power of the Cell in order to provide some of the excellent visuals seen on the console thus far.

At the end of the day it's quite simple, if a developer/publisher wants to maximise their profits then they will aim for a multi-platform release. In order to do this on the current generation platforms they need to build/use an engine which is scalable across both consoles. Since both platforms have noticeably different architectures then they cannot play too much to the strengths of either console or risk branching development time and thus resources too severely.

So, what has this led to:

a) A bunch of multi-platform games whose primary development platform was the 360 and whose PS3 port was more of an after-thought.

b) A bunch of multi-platform games whose primary development platform was the 360 but whose development was done while bearing in mind the differences between the two consoles leading to identical versions.

c) A small number of multi-platform games whose primary development platform was the PS3 but whose development was done while bearing in mind the differences between the two consoles leading to identical versions.

d) A small number of multi-platform games with no primary development platform which take advantages of small facets of each platform leading to two different versions each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

e) A small number of exclusive games which have come from Sony backed studios which, given ample development time and resources from the publisher, have shown what the console can do.

What we haven't seen is a 360 exclusive title which has been developed with an engine designed from the ground up to take advantage of the strengths of this hardware*. From what I've seen the first title which will come close to this is Alan Wake which is due for release next Spring. Of course next year you also have some further high anticipated PS3 games coming out such as God Of War III and Heavy Rain but again they fall into the fifth category above.

So does this mean that either console is "better" than the other for gaming? No, they're just different with each having specific advantages and disadvantages that can be exploited.

*On second thought, there is an exception to this, Forza 3, whose direct competitor will be Gran Turismo 5 and, shock horror, looking at screenshots and videos it seems like both games are pretty much on par visually...and that's not even considering the extra development time GT has had.