PlayStation 3 gameplay preview
By Paul Miller 
posted November 1st 2006 10:01PM
posted November 1st 2006 10:01PM
While Ryan was busy at SCEA playing with the shiny box itself, our NY peeps headed over to a little Sony event where we could get a bit of quality gameplay time. Sony had a good majority of their launch lineup on display, and seeing all the games in the same room gave us a solid impression of the varying quality of the titles. The good news is that all that horsepower isn't just being wasted on 1080p, a lot of these games looked dang impressive, though +$200 impressive might be stretching it a bit. Unfortunately, a few of the games looked no better than their Xbox 360 counterparts, and we're not sure how noticeable some of the differences would be without a fancy, bigscreen 1080p setup. There's also the question of the controller -- Sony's SIXAXIS controller feels just like the Dual Shock of yore (minus the shock, of course), and this blogger finds fragging quite a bit more attainable on that cozy Xbox 360 controller from Microsoft. Keep reading for pics of all the games, along with some of our impressions.
Nice enough vibe, though we've gotta say 1080p could use a bit more legroom than was provided by these displays.
Look how much fun we're all having!
Ah, Peter Rojas in his element: Call of Duty 3.
Or is he?
Yeah, Sony wired up all their controllers for the showing -- don't they trust us?
Graphics def seem a step above the Xbox 360 version, from what we can tell from the internets and our own experience.
Ruh roh! Peter blames the controller, but you can always track him down on Xbox Live for a bit of CoD2 to see for yourself.
Full Auto 2: Battlelines, a PS3 exclusive (for now), featured some pretty intense action and medium-spicy graphics.
No complaints here, MotorStorm looked dang impressive and quite entertaining -- next-gen all the way.
We didn't stick around here too long, but Genji looked just passable in the eyecandy department.
The graphics here make it abundantly clear where the money is in the video game industry.
Pretty, but you'll pry NHL '95 out of our cold, dead fingers.
How come games involving giant and powerful mechs always have to be so boring?
Halo killer? Who knows. Sexy? You betcha.
How come games involving our childhood heroes always have to be so boring?
Sony's version of NBA action looks quite pretty as well.
Graphics are great, animations are superb, "nail the trick" is amazing, and we still suck at skating games. As a side note, the game can be controlled with the SIXAXIS' tilt features, but it's nearly impossible and much less accurate to do so.
Why is everyone so shiny?
Alright, that's it. Nothing really blew us away, but it wasn't a bad showing for Sony by a long shot.
"So, if PS3 looses developers like you, what are we loosing a few medeocre games that end up in the 19.95 bin? Not that worried about that."
You mean loses, losing, and mediocre. Less games is less games. The extremely pricy dev kits really seem to be an indication that Sony is trying crappy ways to recoup some of their costs, at the expense of pushing developers off of their console.
Not every great game has been highly anticipated up to its release. Halo was a knockout from a fairly small company that previously made games only for Macs. Counterstrike and Geometry Wars are other examples of small games that made it big. If a small company has a great idea, PS3 is simply going to be the worst option for them.
Personally, I don't mind the price of the console itself. If you think about, people spend tons more every couple of years on powerhouse gaming PCs -- it's not an outrageous price. But in the eye of the public, higher price means higher expectations, and from what I'm hearing here and elsewhere, those expectations aren't being met yet.
"Yeah. uh. I dont think that the publishers whose games people are MOST pumped up about (EA, Rockstar, Atari, ect) care about the price point of the dev kits, expecially when the Playstation brand already has the upper hand as far as market share goes."
Um.. no.
You mean "had" the upper hand. Microsoft will have 10 million 360's sold by the end of this year. How many will Sony have sold by then? They "hope" to sell 1 million units by the end of December.
Now, if you are a game developing company. Who would you rather make games for? Who will make you more money right now? Who will make you more money 3 months, 6 months or a even a year from now?
The xbox 360 has the larger market share, is easier and cheaper to develope for, sells for less, from reviews is comparable in graphic performance, and has more exclusive games.
Sony has a long way to go to catch up and be king of the hill again. And for the reasons above, will not have an easy time doing so.
They have had a lot of problems lately: the battery recall incident cost them 429 million, profits plunged 94 percent for the July-September quarter (yes you read that right.. 94%!!), and have spent billions on the PS3. Analysts estimate that Sony must sell 30 million to 50 million PS3 units just to break even.
Sony doesn't have the "upper hand" in anything at the moment.
you're all a bunch of morons.. you know that.. all of you.. ps3 is the future, and just because you can't afford it, doesn't mean it's not. we're talking about the number one console for the next 5 years.. and you're stupid to think differently. It dominates microsoft, in every way. And will continue to do so. The games and graphics are only going to get better. But go ahead and spring for an old 360, plus an hd dvd drive, plus live service, and pay the same amount as a ps3, and then realize that you're a fool. I can see buying an xbox 360 to occupy yourself untilt he ps3 comes out.. but once it becomes widely available.. there'll be no reason. 360 is a buggy, over heated peice of garbage..
And Sony is in some trouble. Heres the gist of the event
Walked over from work, as I got about a block away I saw a couple of people on the corner, obviously dressed to be working the event. I get in front of the place and they have all these over flow areas with signs saying that if you did not sign up you can wait there and you might get to play they were totally empty. There was no line to check in, didnt check ID or nothing, just gave me a wrist band and I walked on in. It was probably about 15 or so systems all hooked up to these sweet Bravia plasma screens. It wasnt what they said it was, it was hyped as you get to sit down for 2 hours uninterrupted at a ps3 and try all the games out. What it was was a big room with each system locked down and running a demo, yup, no full games, just demos. I went to play the Tony Hawk game and I noticed it was the same demo as the 360. So I asked the overly enthusiastic guy in the Tony Hawk shirt if it was the same as the 360 demo and he went on and on about how its better because of the tilt control. So I just skipped that and walked around looking for something that wowed me to wait in line to play, there was no wowing.
Figuring it would take forever to get to play one of the games, I walked over to 3 PS3s setup as computers with keyboards and monitors. 1 was completely frozen, another someone had stolen the controller because for some reason they didnt lock down the controllers on these 3 like the other systems, so that one was useless. The only one that you could do anything was jacked because if you tried to watch a video on it, it would error out and kick you back to the menu.
I finally got to play this F1 racing game, and the controller feels really cheap. I didnt think I would miss the rumble feature til I sat down and it was gone. The L2 and R2 buttons are triggers now, but they have the same shape as before, so your finger slips right off em. The graphics on the F1 game were nothing crazy either, like PS2 quality but with a smooth frame rate. Once I moved the camera to the first person view, it got worse. The arms holding onto the steering wheel looked like something off the N64. So I just gave the controller to my friend and went to wait in line for Resistance: Fall of Man.
I only had to wait like 5 minutes to play. Sat down and the game is pretty good looking, but it just felt weird. Once again, no vibration, when shooting there is no recoil or anything, like the screen just stays still and doesnt really feel like it moves naturally. Even walking was like I was just standing on a floating platform. Didnt they have walking motion in the first DOOM?
At this point my friend and I looked at each other, raided the snack tables for everything we could fit in our pockets and went to Best Buy where I bought Need for Speed Carbon for the 360, then went back to play the 360 at his place.
This is supposed to be Sonys saving grace, I think if Sonys lucky theyll get to pull a Sega and just make mediocre games in a couple years.
I'll get one when MGS4 hits, but I'm not going to be all let down not having one in a couple weeks.
re: the event itself - was there any swag to be had?? (t-shirts, snacks, etc..)
ok, there were snacks, what about other stuff?
i'm sort of glad i forgot to go..
The word "fanboy" needs to die!!
The comments in these PS3/360 posts remind me of middle school when all the girls were calling the boys "immature." Several times a day. The same boys.
Sure, the boys were immature, but thank you Captain Obvious for pointing that out every freaking day!!
GEEZ, YOU'RE ALL SO FREAKING IMMATURE!!!
And not even a single screenshot from "Lair". I want that game BAAAAD! I can not wait to see how this whole Playstation 3 pans out. Could it be the death of Sony, or could they actually pull this one off! Only time will tell.
- Kiteless Dragon
^
|
um...yeah, that was supposed to include "sarcasm" and "unrelated rant" tags, but ... they must have gotten stripped...damn comment box!
Believe me, I wanted this to be amazing. I don't know if it's just that nothing can live up to the hype that has been built around the PS3 or what, but I was really disappointed. I thought I was going to show up and have to wait in line and get the 3rd degree about my identity to get in, it was like going to best buy and playing a demo unit. I didn't see any free hats or shirts or anything, just some snacks. Kiteless, I didn't see Lair anywhere, I thought I saw it, but it turned out to be untold legends.
t3chDzyn: Hey thanks for the comment. I may eventually buy a PS3 just for that game. But it will be a loooong while before I can just walk into Target or Wal*Mart and pick one up. In 6 months they are still going to be 600 bux.
Personally I am excited about the console. I hope it does well. :)
Glad to see that unlike the X360 the PS3 will work at 1080p on my Sony XBR2/3 TV (all of those PS3s are hooked up to a XBR3)
What jeans are Peter wearing in those picks? I like the wash!
whoa....slow down there doc...nah..that is not true..in terms of computing power ps3 is the ultimate system and interms of graphics there isnt anything that the xbox can do that cant be done on the ps3 and will be a step even better than it..so next time know what you talking about "mr.educated"
I'm not debating that it has the power to do it, I'm just saying I didn't get that wow factor that I was expecting. The controller sucks no matter how you look at it. Every system has great games and bad games. From what I saw last night, none of those games are worth dropping almost $800 on
yeah, thinks for the spelling tips. O.o
Recovering losses using devkits! BRILLIANT! Sony has lost around 300 million currently in R&D and also production of the Playstation 3. So lets see, if you figured dev kits cost sony $2000 to produce and ship each and 8000 in profit.. they would need to sell just under 400,000 devkits... just to make up for their current losses..
Trust me, Devkits are NOT where the money is at...
So I'm really curious... I signed up for this, but had to bump my flight to NYC by a few days (leaving tonight). I was looking forward to trying out some of the games.
But what I really wanted to try was hooking a PSP up to the consoles and seeing how it functions with the PS3. Did anyone see any PSPs there? I know a lot of people are down on the PSP, but it's the link for me to consider getting a PS3 down the road. Since selling my PS2 last year, I've been using my PSP more and more (I travel a good amount and am not home that much). Given the PS1 games and other options, and some changes to where I'll be home more often, I've been interested in this.
Im wating until sony gets a clue and drops the price. Only little rich kids or hardcore sony lovers will own this system. A normal parent making $12 an hour cant get this for there child or why would they it cost $600 bucks. I wouldnt let a 13 year old play with a $600 toy, Your crazy. Sony will be losing alot of customers this way. All you rich people are probaly going to talk sh1t, Like get a job or your poor. But face it 72% percent of america is middle class and might not be able to afford the ps3.For the other 28% Ask daddy or mommy to drive to the store in there Benz and get you a Ps3. Then shove it in your bum
I had my PSP with me and hooked it up to the one setup as a computer, didn't do anything even with enabling USB mode. Probably needs the 3.0 firmware to do anything. though one of the features on the dashboard, which is basically a much more massive PSP dashboard, was a PSP icon that said "play remotely". Sounds good to me.
I hope someone hacks more video codec playback options on the PS3.. like DivX/XviD ;)
Until then.. no thanks.. the games don't look good enough to warrant the price.
I'm a big fan of Xbox Live.. so the "free" Sony service doesn't really appeal to me.. I love the centralized friends list/chat/etc on the 360. I've made a core group of "friends" that enjoy the same kindof games I like (co-op FPS games) and have had them around since 2003 or so when I started my live gaming. Love the community aspect, the demo downloading, etc.
As far as I've read Sony's "service" isn't really a service.. and their online gaming API isn't ready for prime time (hence a number of early cross-platform titles being online only on the 360.)
And I've always hated the playstation controllers... and it's not from lack of use.. I owned a PS1 and still own and occasionally play my PS2... just a crap desing not made for the hands of a 6'4" caucasian like myself. They are especially bad for FPS games in my experience.
So anyways.. my personal opinion...
My PS3 purchase will most likely ride on it's media capabilities.. storing/streaming video content.. and if it doesn't support DivX in the near future I'll probably pass for quite some time.. I'm sure within a couple years there will be a few exclusive games worthy of purchase for me but since I allready own a 360 and it seems like it focuses on on-line FPS games (my favorite) the games on the PS3 just aren't that appealing to me.
Most important, where can I get one of those chairs?
That's my thing too, I just don't see anything right now that is worth the money. If I'm going to buy one, I'm going for the $600 one because it's just kinda stupid to buy the cheaper one considering all the differences for $100. Then a game, $60, then add tax to all that (roughly 8%), that's gonna be $712, and of course these will be other things like getting an extended warranty. I also am holding out for the dream that there will be enough of a public out cry about the lack of rumble in the controllers and Sony will swallow their pride at sluggish sales and strike up that deal with the company that won the law suit against them. Sony needs to stop playing the "I can't hear you" game because they told them they could make the controllers with rumble and motion sensing. Sony just doesn't want to pay them, can you blame them though? 300 million batteries recalled isn't cheap for a company who's already hurting on funds.
Heheh, I didn't say that it was Sony's grand master plan to recoup losses solely through devkits. What I meant was that it's an indication that Sony is desperate to recoup losses wherever possible, even at the expense of driving developers off their console, whereas companies like Nintendo and Microsoft are willing to take a hit on behalf of their developers in order to encourage prolific development. This is, of course, just an impression, and I can't cite any memos between Sony execs where they discuss milking their developers. Come on, though. $30,000 per devkit? For the price of eight devkits (to test online play) we could hire four to six more full-time artists a year. That's not pocket change.
"How come games involving giant and powerful mechs always have to be so boring?"
I half agree with you..... but alot are boring but also the fact you don't know how to play. its not a game u master in 1 hour, plus you guys wouldn't understand gundam passion
http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6132101.html?part=rss&tag=6132101&subj=news
I think this will dispel the hater talk...another interesting link...
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/743/743898p1.html
IMO, the 360 is really just a crappy PC. Not alot of R&D by Microsoft on technology for this machine other than on the aesthetics and a more comfortable controller (much like how they treat developing new operating systems). I remember watching TechTV's sneak preview before the 360 launched...the Microsoft development team was pretty funny...they were so proud of the design of the machine and the controller (more than 50 percent of the airtime where spent on these aspects)...nothing on technology.
Whereas the PS3 is truly a gaming system, in which Sony has spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing new technology for. The processor tells the whole story...it's essentially a 7 core processor, which can each individually be dedicated to processing a different function that helps bring the realism and entertainment to life. If you think about it, Intel is barely introducing a 4 core processor...this really shows how advance the PS3 is.
With that said, $600 is a bargain. Oh and don't forget Blu-Ray...in terms of technology, it owns HD-DVDs.
But go ahead and support the 360 and be a typical consumer sucker. Corporations like Microsoft who really don't create anything but instead just take existing technology and tweak it a little and sell it (I guarantee you the next xbox will have a multi-core processor). I'm not hating Microsoft...it's actually smart business...how can you spend the least amount of money to make the most.
@steve...I'm not biased at all regarding either system. I do plan on getting a PS3 (not on launch day though) since I've been waiting years for it and I'm also going to get a 360 for (obviously) Halo 3 so I'm not exactly a 'fanboy' However, you're pretty much wrong about everything you said regarding the PS3 and 360
First of all, the PS3 does NOT have 7 processing cores, it has ONE with 6 SPEs backing it up none of which are nearly as powerful as a regular core. What Sony conveniently never tells the public is that those 6 SPEs aren't capable of a lot of things that are required for "processing different functions" (an example is their lack of branch prediction which means they're completely useless for AI or physics) So for simple things yes, they're good at brute strength...
That brings me to your remark about the quad-core Intel CPUs - I'm not familiar with the numbers yet so the PS3 might have more success making simple calculations because of the SPEs but when it comes to actual meaningful tasks the PS3 can't even compete with the Core Duo CPUs much less the quad-core ones. And for the record, you make it sound like 360 has a single core CPU when in fact it's a tri-core CPU - and yes, all THREE of those cores are full cores, not some dumbed down wannabe CPUs like PS3s SPEs.
Basically people get impressed by big numbers and bought into the BS Sony's been feeding, not bothering to do any research (google Cell and Xenos and find a comparison of the CPUs and you'll see) They don't realize though that those big numbers don't mean all that much.
What I have to say to Blu-Ray is...Betamax? Atrac? UMD? I'm pretty sure we've seen Sony try this "high quality, but more expensive" thing before.
About MS, you're right and I hate them for doing that but you have to remember that when it comes to consoles Sony's done more "thievery" than MS has - they stole from Nintendo the concept of an analog stick, rumble, and now motion-sensing controllers. They even borrowed the concept of an internal HDD, HD support from the Xbox along with blatantly ripping off Xbox Live. All of these have soured their reputation in the originality department so I don't know where you were hoping to go with that...
Anyway, all that being said, if I had an unlimited budget I'd get a PS3 because of all the franchises Sony has on it's side (Final Fantasy, GT, Devil May Cry, etc) I want a 360 for all of the original titles it has and the fact that most games coming out on PS3 are on 360 too. It also has the one key franchise that's definied the Xbox, Halo. When it comes down to it, I'm gonna wait on the PS3 to get established before buying but as soon as those killer franchises start rolling in (and I know they will) I'll spring for one so I can have the best of both worlds. Even after that though, with all the cost and untested technologies that plague Sony's system, I think MS has the best chance of making it to the next generation.
Xbox 360 4ever и ниипёт!))
Yes, unfortunately for you the console wars go beyond 1 generation.
Sony has a clear upperhand in the console wars, the same way micrsoft has an upper hand in Operating Systems v/s macOS.
Sony's PS2 crushed Xbox in terms of sales... because it had lead becasue of the PS1. The PS3 has a good chance to crush the Xbox360, because it had an enourmouse lead in terms of the PS2.
10 million units by then end of this year, well, woopty fucking do, its been out for an entire year. Not to mention, that this article
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=14193
refutes that statement, and says that only 6 million have been sold, and that That is UNDER market expectations. Now, i cant find an article, so i could be wrong, but i had htought the number for sales by deember was actually 2 million, which, at that rate, would out sell the Xbox 360.
Still, no matter how you slice it, Microsoft does not have the largest market share in video games, sony does, by a clear margin. The losses incurred this quarter, had little to do with the PS3 and a lot to do with batteries produced for computers. Whats your point? That doesnt have anything to do with the long term profitability of the PS3. also, 30 - 50 million PS3s is not a lot of ps3.
Even if the United States was the only country buying playstation three's only 10% of the population (300 million population X 10% = 30million) So, yet again, just more hot air from you.
Listen, the fact of the matter is, no one knows who will "win" the battle, but if your gonna say your Xbox is, atleast back it up with some fact, instead of using numbers and news that doenst really apply...
I own both an XBox 360, and a Sony Playstation 3, yes I got it before launch, I'm using both on my 60" LCoS Sony TV (The best money can by, according to every high-def mag)
At first I thought the PS3 would just be slightly better with graphics, but it FREAKING BLOWS my xbox 360 out of the WATER in terms of graphics quality. Try Fight Night 3? It's on both systems, It's much, much more detailed on PS3.
on Xbox 360 even the best games, take a racing game for example render polygons off in the distance as you are driving. Nothing of the sort happens with the PS3, I've never seen senery pop up in the background. It's all rendered in advance. It kicks ass, it really does blow me away. I know I'm probably pissing off Xbox 360 owners, but realize I have one too.
The PS3 makes everything on the XBox 360 look blurry now.
I think I'm gonna sell it.
"30 - 50 million PS3s is not a lot of ps3"
Think about this for a second. The PS2 was the value leader of the last generation, and now Sony is trying to become the high-quality leader. The PS2 was, UNDENIABLY, the lowest-spec and cheapest to produce system of last generation. This is part of the reason they sold so many units: they were cheap, they had a ton of games, so the people who didn't want to pony up the extra bucks got a PS2 instead of an XBOX. This is, in a way, a shame, because it was such an inferior piece of hardware. The Gamecube version of Resident Evil 4 looks so much better than the PS2 version that it's just plain laughable. I still wish to this day that Capcom had made an xbox version of RE4 instead.
Fast forward to now. Sony wants to turn their Honda franchise into Mercedes, a year late. They are no longer the value leader -- Nintendo has intentionally taken up that role. You can't say that Sony has a huge market share when they SWITCH MARKETS.
30-50 billion would not be a lot of PS2's. It'd be a damn ton of PS3's though.
lol, war between blue-ray and hdd? too bad they've already found a player to play them both. there is no war.. just how stubborn the developers will be that their product is better, when in fact they are the same thing. They just read differantly.
Microsoft has put their all into the xbox360. They even claimed this would be the last system if they lose to sony.
Of course console wars are good. If you go back 5 years, the ps3 had the specs on the xbox. yes xbox1. But now ps3 couldnt suck that bad, they had to up it. So microsoft has given sony a run for their monopoly. Which is good for the consumer.. till we hit the 800 - 1000 dollar mark that is. In my opinion the WII has the most potential with their inovative controls. They arent going for eye candy like everyone else. Maybe this is Nintendo's time to shine. If your having fun, sometimes it outweighs eye candy. Whats the point of eye candy if the game sucks ?
either way, im still a PC pro gamer. won't stop me from attending events.