Anybody play ps3 yet?

[odysseyroc]

I had a chance to play with the PS3 demo kiosk at Target yesterday. The playable games were an NBA game and some sort of off road racing game. I have to say I was less than impressed by what the system has to offer for the price. In my estimation, the improved graphics added nothing whatsoever to the overall game play experience. The NBA game was about as much fun as the 2k sports versions I have on dreamcast and the racing game was about as fun as every other bad racing game I've played. I left the store feeling a little bit sad because for the first time since my dad brought home  an Odyssey 2, I'm more dissapointed in than hyped about the latest greatest gaming console.

[skim36]

Yeah, I was at Best Buy last night and watched them set it up and play it.  The graphics are comparable to the 360....the guys had a time figuring out the interface at first.....one screen I saw looked exactly like the PSP interface......nothing really knocked my socks off...but then again...look at the games first released for the PS2 and Xbox....and look at the games now.  Time will tell...and the first run games never really take full advantage of the systems true potential.  I'll drop by the store Friday morning early to see the line.....of course...up here in Maine....they'll probably only have about 10 to 15 consoles...and those will be made of wood   Best Buy will be opening at 8....giving out tickets at 7....I'd be happy with the vamped down 20 gig version....it still has ethernet and I don't need the memory stick slots.  If not...it still might be wise to wait.....heard overheating rumors and problems....the first version of the PS2 had a crappy laser.....If I happen into one like I did the PS2 a week after it was released...I'll buy it...if not, I can wait...good things come to those who wait...and you get to read reviews of which games rock and which ones are crappy BEFORE you buy them.....my 2.

--Skim36

[odysseyroc]

I think the price point is what really kills it for me. The 360's $400 price is more than I'm willing to pay for a console at this point. If prices start dropping in the next few years then I'll likely go "next-gen". I plan on picking up a Wii because it offers something new in terms of gameplay and the price ain't too bad either. I just think this next-gen stuff is a whole lot more hype than substance.

[AlanS17]

Well I do appreciate the ability to play games in high definition and it's got the Blue-Ray player. That right there is just about enough for me. Plus my favorite game developers will been making games for the PS3.

[shmokes]

The NBA game is getting really mediocre reviews.  Resistance, however, is getting fantastic reviews.  So it's nice that PS3 is launching with at least one killer app.  Xbox 360 has a few now, with Gears of War, Oblivion and Dead Rising  -- maybe Saint's Row, too, I suppose.  But it's been out for a year.  Looking at screenshots of Killzone, it's clear that PS3 is capable of much much more than what is represented in the launch lineup.  This is no surprise of course, all systems produce better and better games as developers get better at working with the platform.

and so on . . .

[SirPoonga]

I am trying to figure out how to word this without offending anyone.  The purpose of this reply is to satisfy my curiosity, not offend someone.

Alan, are you implying the 360 doesn't play high definition games?  Also ,is a first generation bluray player worth it?  My experience with my first generation dvd player tells me to wait, better things will come in a year and there will be more titles to choose from.

Shmokes, what do you mean by "but it's been out for a year"?  What were you expecting?

[ChadTower]

There is always something better coming in a year than what you can get now.

[farmecologist]

Should be interesting to see how a game like TES:Oblivion on the PS3 stacks up against the 360 version.

[AlanS17]

No, the XBOX360 is high definition. The Wii isn't, though. However, there are more exlcusive titles coming to PS3 that I'm interested than there are for the XBOX360. We've bought 5 or 6 games for the XBOX360, and haven't had any that we just couldn't put down (except for Call of Duty 2 which I finished and then never played again).

I'm not concerned about a first generation Blue-Ray player. It's a standard unto itself. It's not like DVD's where they had the whole +/- fiasco. There is just one Blue-Ray format and the PS3 will play it... at a price level below other Blue-Ray players.

I don't think any of the new game systems are advantageous for anyone that doesn't have a hi-def TV, though. It defeats the purpose im my mind.

[SirPoonga]

There is always something better coming in a year than what you can get now.

Yes, but I said first gen.  The first year of a car always sucks, it gets the most recalls.  Same with most products.

[shmokes]

Shmokes, what do you mean by "but it's been out for a year"?  What were you expecting?

I mean that the PS3 is launching with a killer app, which is nice.  The Xbox 360 did not, which kinda sucked.  And I mean that the Xbox 360 naturally has more killer titles than the PS3 right now seeing as it's been out for a year now.  I suppose I also mean that Gears of War looks as good, probably better than Resistance: Fall of Man, but Gears of War is a second gen game and no game that launched with the 360 looked (or played) as good as Resistance.

So, basically take it for what it's worth.  PS3 launches with a killer app.  That's nice, and it's something the 360 didn't do.  The 360, is cheaper, though, and has more killer apps right now because it's been out longer.  I think they PS3 is probably more powerful than 360, but in the same way that the Xbox was more powerful than the PS2.  It's a bit more powerful, but both systems are capable of playing all the same games.  So it mainly comes down to developer support, and Sony reducing their retarded price.

[somunny]

Resistance isn't getting rave reviews across the board.  Some great, some good.  Possibly the best reviewed PS3 game so far, but not a decisive slam dunk. 

[tommy]

I still find it hard to see how the PS3 can out perform the 360. With the 360's 3 - 4.2ghz processors and the PS3'S 1 - 4.2.

Maybe I'm missing something reguarding the "Cell Processor" as Sony calls it?

[lcddream]

i think the cell processor has multiple cores

[SirPoonga]

The ps3 has 8 cores though 6 are active.  Technically 7 are active, one is a backup.

[shmokes]

Yeah . . . it has 7 (up to 8, technically, but 7 for all intents and purposes.), though 1 is reserved for OS activity so game developers only have 6 at their disposal.  I don't know what Tommy is smoking, but both the 360 and the PS3 are clocked at 3.2 GHz, not 4.2.  Also, they are wildly different chip architectures, so clock speed is really only of secondary importance when comparing the chips.  The cores of the Xbox 360 work much differently than the cores of the PS3 from what I understand.  You certainly could not conclude that the PS3 is anything like twice as powerful as the 360 based on the fact that it has 7 cores versus the 360's 3 cores.  Additionally, while the PS3 seems to have the better processor of the two, the 360 has twice as much RAM which balances things out a bit.

edit: SP beat me to the punch.

[tommy]

I don't know what Tommy is smoking,

I think you could have found a much better phrase then that one there shmoker.    Seeing how you have never sent anything offending in my direction i'll give you the benifit of the doubt on this one. 

I was not aware that the PS3 had so many processors, i'm glad i got that info.

[SirPoonga]

Actually shmokes they disabled the 8th to make the manufacturing process cheaper and to get the chips out in time.  In summer Sony made several press releases trying t justify that.  That was about the same time people were reporting 80% of the cells being created were bad because they were so hard to make.

[shmokes]

Oh, I know.  That's why I said 7 for all intents and purposes, because even if your chip was produced with 8 working cells it still will only use 7 of them.

[SirPoonga]

But it won't.  One smart thing Sony did was somehow the proc only uses 6.  If one fails, whih apparently has a good chance of happening, there's a backup.  That's pretty nifty.

Either way it ends up being an insane ammount of threads  So I am expecting some good computer ai out of it   Well, first party stuff at least.

[shmokes]

Resistance isn't getting rave reviews across the board.  Some great, some good.  Possibly the best reviewed PS3 game so far, but not a decisive slam dunk. 

I don't know.  Lowest review I see is 85 out of 100, which is pretty excellent.  Overall Metacritic score is a 90

A quote from the lowest review I've found:

"Resistance falls a little short of being the hoped-for "Halo-killer," but with a package that would be considered complete by any standards, it delivers a launch classic, and it lives up to its billing as the PS3's killer app."  (emphasis mine)

[shmokes]

But it won't.  One smart thing Sony did was somehow the proc only uses 6.  If one fails, whih apparently has a good chance of happening, there's a backup.  That's pretty nifty.

Either way it ends up being an insane ammount of threads  So I am expecting some good computer ai out of it   Well, first party stuff at least.

Are you sure the 7th cell is unused and only there for backup?  I'm under the impression that it's off-limits to developers because it is reserved for OS functions (so the OS can always be called up, and running things like chat and stuff in the background without any possibility of affecting gameplay).  As I understand it, all 7 functioning cells are used and work simultaneously, but developers can only use 6 of them for games for the reason described above, so if even one of your cells goes out you've got a broken PS3 as there is no backup cell to kick in.



edit:  here's what Wikipedia says about it, FWIW:

The PS3's 3.2 GHz Cell processor, developed jointly by Sony, Toshiba and IBM ("STI"), is an implementation to dynamically assign physical processor cores to do different types of work independently. It has a PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" (PPE) and six accessible 3.2 GHz Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs), a seventh runs in a special mode and is dedicated to OS security, and an eighth disabled to improve production yields.