I’m not much of a Nintendo fan either so I’ll prolly end up with a PS3 at the end (sold the 2 I got).

Ragin’ Lion says:
The PowerGlove wasn’t a product made by Nintendo. It was made by Mattel back in the late 80’s.

Yeah well, it wasn’t the main controller, but it was definitely an official one.

Many people made fun of Nintendo when the DS was announced, but the DS is enjoying high sales over the PSP which is technologically superior. Nintendo took a risk and (at least with the DS) they’re reaping the financial rewards.

Pen input is definitely less of a gimmick. Swinging a controller around isn’t probably going to go very far. I suspect that eventually people will set for small movements, much like happens with the mouse vs touch screen.

nu_jazzist…
Sorry but I don’t buy the “old games were better”. I understand the feeling, but it’s not up to old-skoolers to decide what newer generations like.
I agree that PS3 came out too early, but that had to be done. Sony had to be present, push the hype, get in the market.
Wii will do great but it won’t make people hate better graphics.

Either way, here’s my take on the new consoles… as far as power goes, I’m more impressed with the xbox. The PS2 shows some smooth looking games… but it’s nothing new. Some of the clips from xbox that I see (gears of war etc) look really interesting, and I actually regret not being able to play the xbox exclusive feast there… and that’s coming from someone who used to be heavily anti-xbox.
The PS3 is released too early I think. The games don’t show off its power properly, like the ps2’s ffx did. All the games are stale, and rehashed. It’s basically a boring looking system.
And with a massive price tag like that, I’m surprised it’s selling at all.
Nintendo on the other hand seems like a winner to me. The fact that you can download all the old nintendo games (and other systems). The tiny size, the innovative control, the spins they put on classic games like zelda and mario. Maybe it doesn’t have HD, but it seemed like nintendo really focused on cramming as much fun into a console as possible, and it shows.

Either way, I won’t be getting any of the next gen consoles… not for a while anyways… I might invest in a ps2 when the price drops… or maybe I’ll just buy an NES
new games just don’t have the kick of the classics

As far as the avaiable games. Armored Core 4 will come out next month, and that could be a reason for me to buy the PS3. Although From Software has never been too famous for real-time rendering quality..
As for the Wii.. I enjoyed Starfox and Marion 64 on the Nintendo 64, btu generally I don’t care for Nintendo games, so it’s never really going to attract me.

Rince:
Sounds interesting ! I actually got my Sony developer account (along with the Microsoft and Nintendo one) just Friday.
I’d like to start looking into it, and perhaps play with the PS3 devkit (which I’m told I could request), but currently I’m involved in more high level generic graphics programming 8(

As far as graphics hw is concerned it actually has some major shortcomings. For example the pixel shader constants have to be patched into the actual shader. And the way the HW does it, is by performing a 2D blit. So basically everytime you upload pixel shader constants the graphics pipeline gets flushed, which is a really bad performance hit.

Also you only have 12 interpolators between the vertex and a pixel shader, so you can not pass much data that way either.

People are talking about storing all the constants into a texture and make the pixel shader read them from there instead.

On the other hand it has the SPU’s that you could probably use to modify the shader code at runtime to store the constants in the shader. But there isnt actually any official info available to developers from nvidia about shader binary format, unless you are Sony.

This said, I’m just back from a trip to hectic NY where I’ve been able to try both the PS3 and the Wii. The problem with the PS3 seems to be with its titles or lack thereof. I’ve tried a racing game and it was very unimpressive (inconstant framerate and low playability). But OF COURSE those are very very early titles and I’m positive the PS3 will have some killer apps in the future. Until that time, anyway, there’s nothing that attracts my attention on that machine as well as on the 360. Also, it looks like next-gen games are mostly FPS which I feel more confortable playing on my PC due to the input devices.

The Wii was pretty fun (tried Tennis and Excite Truck). The latter was pretty impressive graphics-wise, but surely in the long run Wii’s old-gen video subsystem will struggle to keep up with its competitors. Now anyway it seems to have a more interesting choice of games and connectivity services that is making me consider a purchase. We’ll see when it comes out here next month!

muu

I never said that good playability can’t be included on the PS3. I just commented on what I’ve observed (so far). Obviously the PS3 hardware doesn’t force development houses to make “eye-candy-only” games … it’s just the trend that many development houses have chosen (for whatever reasons).

The PowerGlove wasn’t a product made by Nintendo. It was made by Mattel back in the late 80’s.

I think the Wii’s controller potentially offers something new to how people play games over the traditional controller scheme (an innovation by Nintendo by the way from the NES days) … Sony’s DualShock button layout by no coincidence resembles the button layout for the SNES. For the Wii, it’ll come down to the kinds of software that’s made to take advantage of the controller. Even PS3’s SIXAXIS has motion sensing … which some debate that it’s ripoff of the Wii controller’s motion sensing.

Many people made fun of Nintendo when the DS was announced, but the DS is enjoying high sales over the PSP which is technologically superior. Nintendo took a risk and (at least with the DS) they’re reaping the financial rewards.

Whether the Wii succeeds or not is anyone’s guess, but I at least give Nintendo credit for trying something different.

Allow me to dissent on the reiterated statement that PS3 is just a graphics upgrade and that people simply want new gaming experiences.

First of all, the graphics upgrade doesn’t necessarily imply that good playability can’t be included.
Secondly, slicing air is certainly an innovation (although Nintendo previously tried with the terribly flawed PowerGlove) but if one really has to move his ass, then isn’t it just better to go to the gym, go dancing, or get laid ?!

Perhaps I’m seeing this too much as an adult. But it seems to me that those that are really demanding innovations are the bored adults. Adults enticed by the idea to be dorks with a controller. While kids probably just want to be in front of the TV and focus on efficiently control their games. I haven’t tried the Wii, but I have a strong feeling that the motion sensitive controller isn’t going to revolutionize mainstream game playing. It’s cool on paper, but practically striking air is never going to be accurate without proper feedback.
There will be some very nice ideas coming out, but we can’t discount the pleasure of viewing great imagery and our fingers as an efficient interface to interaction.

People have always complained about a new system lacking enough games during launch. There’s nothing new about that … and I would say that we’re definitely in the “privileged” ranks in that we can afford to buy a PS3 (not to mention that gaming is related to what we do for a living).

It would have definitely been nice if the Wii had more horsepower and whatnot, but (so far) that I’ve seen with XBox360 and the 1st-Gen PS3 games is that things have mostly been a graphics upgrade. While that’s nice and all, it would have been even better to have new types of gaming experiences. I think that’s why people are excited about the Wii because up until now, people have not had the chance to play games in that manner. As to whether the Wii will succeed, only time will tell.

I’m probably not going to buy a PS3 until FF XIII is released. I’ve still a few PS1 games in the shrink-wrap and have yet to finish the Gamecube and PS2 games that I own. 8P

For now any “next-gen” system that I purchase will be a PC upgrade! (^-^)

I think that Americans basically culturally love Nintendo, dislike Sony as a corporate and are pretty happy with the XBox 360.

Really? Check out these lovely (all American) news bits:

The Violence Inherit in the System Launch