CRAZY this year! After spending time at Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft booths:
- PS3
- Wii
- XBox 360
Some of the PS3 stuff is freaking AMAZING. Really next gen.
Jeff will post pictures on his blog in a few days!
-Chris
i ranked them the same as you before E3, even though i didn’t go to E3, from what i’ve seen from the video’s, my opinion has now changed to
- Wii
- PS3
- XBox 360
the Wii just looks too nice ;D (*not the name though)
I saw all three videos. The thing that kinda struck me was that only the Wii conference it was actually fun! The games were fun, not just iterations of proven success. Not HighDefinition blood and gore. Games that make you smile, instead of stare at the screen in deep concentration.
I think the Wii will be a Revolution…
Agreed, the Wii looks like the best step forward. Given the development kit is going to be $2000 and we now have functional gcj builds working - how long til we can get a Java game on it?
Kev
Wii is looking REALLY good.
besides, how can you deny this: http://revolution.ign.com/articles/707/707077p1.html
The Wii videos are really amazing! This next console seem really really just too cool!
I’d like to know the technical specs of the machine. On the Nintendo website you read some vague specs about the GPU and CPU and this is just not enough! I know this machine is not about next-gen specs about I’m curious to exactly know how it compares in performance to the other next-gen consoles.
And, what about the price? I want to know! 
[quote]how long til we can get a Java game on it?
Kev
[/quote]
Ask mister Iwata… 
Seriously, we, the developpers need to ask massively for Java support to make things change.
Yes, but doing it for ourselfs might be easier.
If the dev kits is cheap, home brew stuff will be pretty quick introduced, which hopefully means a gcc target for the wii hardware - only gap is whether it has any sort of OpenGL support ?
I hope that the low dev kit price is to encourage small companies to get in on the games making act. Not Nintendos past form but heh, this is a Revolution.
What they need is a really tilt based game to utilise that new controller…
Kev
Your gcc solution seems more realistic than a new VM port since a really fast VM on a new platform is very very hard to develop, unless Sun (or another compny that has that expertise) has the contract to develop it.
What is the price of the dev kits for PS3 and XBOX 360 just for comparison?
No mariocart and ddr make GKW something something…
check out this article
edit: nevermind, misread you. thought you meant systems, not devkits… :
but I would guess this kind of situation would increase the cost of the dev kit for PS3 substantially. but then again, that article is like a year old…
I believe we were talking around $20000 for a PS2 development kit (thats what google tells me anyway). Factor of 10 difference.
Which way Sony will go with pricing for PS3 devkits who knows? Given the hard involved I can’t imagine its going to be cheap.
Though Microsoft seem to be responding with dev kit rumours as low as $100
Kev
A xb360 dev kit for $100. I struggle to believe it, considering all the effort to keep it a closed system. Particularly if you could create discs that run on standard xb360’s. But if it were true, I’d be sorely tempted.
iirc, you could get linux for ps2 at quite a reasonable cost. However any s/w you developed would only run on another linux equiped ps2, so I didn’t really consider it worth the effort.
Of course, the main drawback is lack of a multi-million budget (and talent possibly )
Alan
xbox doesnt really have to worry about the discs being exploited - they’re pluggable into a PC anyway. Sony is the one that worries about their dev kits getting into the wrong hands (UMD has yet to be cracked). do a search for “pacmanfan” - he came really close to cracking the EBOOT.PBP format, but not after the Firmware2.0+ update.
What exactly do you mean UMD has yet to be cracked? I know for a fact UMD games are taken off in their iso-form all the time and can be very easily loaded onto a memory stick and played just like a normal game. This is very similar to the Xbox hard drive being used to store games and played off of memory, except there’s absolutely no hardware hacking necessary (actually not sure, xbox may not have needed this). Regardless, I would say it’s been cracked.
Now, some of the newer firmware updates would prevent you from using these cracked ISOs, I believe, but if you have anything under ver. 2.0 the level of security on the system is laughable.
which is why I mentioned that upgrade, which, in fact, has not been cracked (yet)
FWIW I agree with chris… here is my extended take and rationale. Its clipped from my post to another BBS where people don’t know whoIam so you will note I do things like avoid identifying either myself or chris…
======================
First, a pre-E3 note. I heppend to fly down ona plane with a Cryptic game designer. While trying not to be a fan-creature I chatted with hima bit about the things that I was most interested in. This is teh gist of the conversation:
(1) Me: I really wish I could set a name per costume so my hero/villain name isnt flaoting over my head when Im in “secret ID”. Him: Yeah, thats on our list of “nice thinsg to do in the future.”
(2) Me: Whatever happend to the Universities? Him: They are coming, in some form, in issue 18.
(3) Me: The level 40-50 ramp is a real bitch. Him: yeah, aint it?
Not a lot of info. I didnt push him at all. But some inetresting tidbits to consider.
E3 NOtes:
XBox360 is in HUGE trouble.
None of the games Micrsoft had on disply (with one exception I’ll reference later) woudl make me go buy a 360. Were they better then Xbox/PS2. Marginally perhapse, but it is most an evolutuion not a revolution.
OTOH the PS3 games are fricking amazing! We’re talking stuff you couldnt do on anything less then the highest end PC with a $600 video card. COnsidering that, the rather steep $599 price for the un-crippled PS3 really seems a bargin. I’ll be posting some tills to my blog next week btu they do not do the games justice. They are doing stuff in real-time that looks like pre-rendered animation. Just effing amazing.
On the other side of the market, the Nitendo Wii (previously called “Revolution”) is really inventive and getting wow responses fro originality and game design from everyone I’ve talked to. (I didnt see it myself and probabky wont as you have to stand on like 2 hours or so to get in the room to play with it.)
I see a HUGE problem for MSFT. PS3 is goign to take the hardcore gamers and the folks who want the most realisitc expereicnes, hands down. Nintendo is going to rule the casual/unusual and junior markets. I just don’t see any room left for 360 to play in. Sure, its 2/3 the price of a PS3, but I just don’t WANT one the way I WANT the other two.
There was one XBox game I saw that I want. Unfrotunately, I can tell you almost nothing about it. Its the new Bioware sci fi RPG Mass Effect. What info is publicly available is on their site (www.bioware.com). We get into a special showing because my business-sdie partner-in-crime (Im the tech weenie) happens to know Ray Muzyka pretty well. What I can see is this, Bioware is clearly working on making the idea of interactive-film really work and this is the closest I’ve seen so far to thatholy grail.
However, I doubt Ill buy an Xbox 360 to play it. When I asked if it was exclusive to Xbox360 if I was told “for the moment.” I interpret that to mean that Micrsoft has bought a limited time exclusivity and when that expires it will appear on other platforms. As cool as it is, Im in no real rush to play it.
Lots and Lots of OLRPG activity. From folsk you know and folks you never ehard of. There are WAY tooo many “fantasy bash and grab” games out there at this point but here are a few that particaulrly struck me:
From our friends at NCSoft a few interesting tidbits. Both Exteel (their giant robot death match FPS) and “Dungeon Runners” (a new product that remidns me a fair bit of D&D online in goals and scope ) will be free to download and free to play in basic mode. You wont have to pay a dime until you want to access “advanced features.” Already inovation in player-friendly ways with the lack of an additional monthly fee for CoH players of CoV (which surpised the heck out of me) they continue to experiment with user friendly business models. More power to them.
Also from NCSoft is Aion, a game they describe as “the most beautiful MMORPG ever made.” I dont think thats Hyperbole. It is stunningly gorgeous. I will be posting a few stills to me blog next week. Its also an inetresting experiment in play mechanics. The game has basically two PC teams (Angles and Devils). There is a third team in the game however, the Dragons, who are entriely computer controlled. The goal of the Dragons is to play both sides against each other and try, by aiding either side in battles, to accomplish this. If the AI is good enough, which means duplicitous and devious enough, it could be a VERY intersting game.
The Aion folks are apparently making good progress as they say they expect to shgip before Tabula Rasa, which was showing last year and again this year as a work in progress.
Another interesting entry is the Funcom game “Conan: The Hyborian Age.” This game wins my “photo-realism” awared for MMOs at E3 this year. From the characters to the environment it looks very real and very gritty… which IMO is perfect for Conan. It also features something MMO players have wanted for a long time-- mounted combat.
Finally my show raspberry goes to a company that will remain nameless because I have to potentially do business with them. However, the reason for the raspberry I can at least explain. They are showing an AMAZING trailer for one of their new games. It looks like the holy-grail of this particular genre. When you see the actual game though it neither looks nor plays anything like the trailer.
A friend in the industry told me, confidentially, that they spent $2million dollars in 3D animation production making that trailer. PPbbbbbt. Rather then spending 2 million dollars making a marketing lie, maybe if they had spent that on the game as well it might be a better game.
Thats the E3 highlights, folks.
What do you mean by “cracked”? User-mode is cracked IIRC (good for dev - you just need to boot someone else’s game first, but useless for selling ;).
Anwyay, at the GDC sony keynote, Phil promised games and booting from mem stick, downloadable distributable games, etc. Should be covered extensively in news sites?
so far, the only homebrew PSP games you can throw on a memory stick are for the 1.5 firmware only (with the exception of GTA’s eLoader).
the only “games” Sony has released for the memory stick itself is little demos from PSP underground.