PlayStation 3 is Finally Not a Money Loser for Sony

[cletus_slackjawd]

I yet it still is not on my "to buy" list until it can play my PS2 games.

 

[10tacle]

Well considering that my fat boy PS3 died over July 4th weekend at a friend's house and he decided to finally go buy one that afternoon at Fry's, I would hope that the economies of scale were starting to pull in favor of Sony.

This is irrespective of the fact that the amount of Blu-Ray failures on the original PS3 like mine and eventual complete laser failure have been very under-reported outside of blogs.

Now that I essentially have nothing but a "media" server that can't even play games, let alone Blu-Rays and standard DVD movies, and now I'll have to fork over a cool $300 for another. That, even though I bought a Sony BD player for $108 at Sam's thinking that just the BD part of the PS3 was dying. Oh well, at least my home built PCs have never failed me.

 

[10tacle]

[citation][nom]PC PS3 Slim User[/nom]For you people out there that think your high end PC has Better Graphics & Gameplay than a PS3... Then think again, just watch the Lastest Final Fantasy on a PS3 & you will change your mind.[/citation]

I have a high much higher end PC, i930 overclocked to 4.4GHz with two GTX 470s overclocked, and can tell you that you are either blind or running low resolutions on both fronts. Show me Dirt 2 on the PS3 on a 1080p LCD or plasma TV that looks as good as on the PC in DX11 on a 2560x1600 LCD PC monitor and I'll show you a manbearpig.

 

[Guest]

10tactle: Regards to what you wrote:
I understand what your saying & its half true to that, but I say that & still think that based on the following:

When you Play Games wether or Not its a PC or PS3 the Games are made to Run at a Recommended Resolution (by Default) so what I am saying here has nothing to do with OverClocking, or Sli Setup etc...

Just Imagine if you could OverClock the Playsation 3... then we could Compare the Differences, but PS3 Games are Made to Run at a Particular Resolution wether its 720p or 1080p. 100% of the Games I have on Computer I can Play at Maxed Settings Running Resolutions at 1280x720 with about 85% I can run at 1920x1080 without any Problems (Yes No Dual Card Config). Some High End Games on my PC are: Far Cry 2, Crysys, FEAR 2, NecroVisioN, Painkiller & Wolfenstein.

Having said that, FPS may be Important for some but for me no what I mean by this is if I can Run my Games at there full Glory without any jerkyness I am happy, so whats the Point in getting like 200fps when there is no problem running the Same game on Exactly the same settings with 100fps where in both cases Minimum fps wouyld be between 30 & 45fps.

Comparing: This is how people should be Comparing Games.

PS3: The Game 1280x720
Computer: The Game(Same Game Title) 1280x720

PS3: The Game 1920x1080 (Must Stated on Game Cover) to be afficial.
Computer: The Game(Same Game Title) 1920x1080

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]PC PS3 Slim User[/nom]For you people out there that think your high end PC has Better Graphics & Gameplay than a PS3... Then think again, just watch the Lastest Final Fantasy on a PS3 & you will change your mind.[/citation]
Oh, watching FF XIII on the PS3 definitely keyed me in to some things. For one, practically all the cutscenes are done as FMVs.

But here's an interesting tidbit to chew on: FF XIII does not use HDR at all. That's right, the standard-fare "current gen/next-gen" shader isn't even used.

Plus, once we actually look at it, we find a game that, in reality, doesn't look much better than a PS2 game; it doesn't use HDR, it doesn't even use BLOOM much, or much of any shaders; it seems Square/Enix have a perpetual problem adapting to real-time technology. To make sure you're not looking at pre-rendered FMVs, try paying attention to the battles; it's true, we can look and It's not all that impressive; if it wasn't for the fact that it was in 720p, (only sports games do 1080i/p on the PS3, as it turns out) it wouldn't really look much different from FF XII.

Really, it boggles me how there can be so many console fans that still believe that a gaming console is a magical black box that can produce arbitrary results to satisfy said fanboys' whims. They're computer devices just like any other, and like any other, they become old and obsolete. It's only through sheer devotion to the console that prevents an avid gamer from being able to notice outright, counting pixels, polygons, textures, and shaders to notice that they clearly don't stack up against modern computers. All told, your GTX 285 (that is, if you actually even have one) will likely stomp even the PS4.

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]Hargak[/nom]Maybe then I'll look at their other games (once GT5 has worn off it's shiny)[/citation]
Yeah, $300US is a bit of a steep "entry fee" to buy a single game, in my opinion. For those that want a Blu-ray player, (one of the best stand-alone ones, I might add) it justifies the price, but otherwise... Not so much. As I'd noted above, the Uncharted series, as well as LittleBigPlanet, are two cases where the PS3 actually has compelling true exclusives on it. Many of the others really only appeal to specific (either Sony or the relevant series) fanboys, though I suppose God of War 3 is worthwhile if you're a violent-action-game junkie who just can't get enough. (and hence likely already own, say, a Wii for MadWorld and the two No More Heroes titles, in spite of their shortcomings)

MGS4, as coming from someone who considered the original MGS one of the best games ever here, is a disappointment. For hardcore fans that'll love anything Metal-gear related, it's a must-have, but if you're not that into it (or worse, haven't gotten into the series) it can be hard to really like it. I think Yahtzee got it right in his "Zero Punctuation" review of it.

But there are at least a few other games worth checking out, definitely. Just, unfortunately, not really enough to having proven Sony's "let's lose money!" strategy right; to date, their attach rate is 8.1, (vs. 7.7 for the Wii, 8.8 for the Xbox 360) which means that that mandatory $10US "extra PS3 fee" each game has on their purchase price (i.e, why they cost $60US vs. $50US for the Wii and PC versions) has netted them... $81US. Given that for a lot of the time period, they were losing $300US or more per console, it's not a bright idea. And since the PS2, the shining example of a successful console, only reached a 10.3 attach rate at the end of its life... It means that really, losing more than $100 per console is a stupid idea.

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]Me Again PC PS3 User[/nom]Comparing: This is how people should be Comparing Games.PS3: The Game 1280x720Computer: The Game(Same Game Title) 1280x720PS3: The Game 1920x1080 (Must Stated on Game Cover) to be afficial.Computer: The Game(Same Game Title) 1920x1080[/citation]
Actually, even then it's being a bit "unfair" and giving the PS3 an advantage... There's a lot of shortcomings with consoles that they hide, to try and claim PC-level performance. Here's just a few of the more prominent ones:
-Not using anti-aliasing (PS3-only, usually) - While it's partly due to the G71-based core being unable to use HDR+AA at the same time, it does still mean it 'saves' processing power by having an easier time.
-Running below stated resolution - Most often on the Xbox 360; I dunno about 720p games pretending to be 1080p, but no top-shelf action titles actually natively go above 720p; crawling up to the TV and counting pixels (or exporting an HDMI signal INTO a PC and screencapping) is the only way to tell; Fallout 3 runs at a pathetic 1024x576, (75% of the "antquidated low-end" 1024x768 PC resolution) for instance, and Halo 3 is 1138x640.
-No Anisotropic Filtering - Both the 360 and PS3 don't touch AF, which is commonplace for PC gamers.
-Lower framerate cap - Both the 360 and PS3 are heavily guilty of this; if the thing is synced to not go over 30 fps, it's a lot easier than shooting for 60. I've yet to find a SINGLE top-shelf action game that has a framerate cap higher than 30; ones that're lower ocassionally still pop up.
-Reduced texture resolution - Partly due to the fact that the PS3 and 360 have a grand total of 512MB of memory available for the game AND graphics, while 1GB for video RAM alone is common on PCs these days. (and 2GB cards are starting to show up) This means there's less of a texture load for the GPU to handle, too.
-Reduced shader effects - To compensate for the much-lower computational power available on consoles' GPUs, many effects are either removed, or reduced in resolution, or 'shortcutted' to sacrifice quality for performance.
All told, once you actually cut down the requirements here, you find that even a low-end PC can readily meet these. The only reason people think consoles aren't hideously outdated is that they believe they're magical black boxes that invariably play any game put on it at constant 60fps, at 1920x1080, maxed everything, yadda yadda. They take paper BS shoved at them and eat it hapily, without actually looking at the screen.

 

[enforcer22]

[citation][nom]Me Again PC PS3 User[/nom]10tactle: Regards to what you wrote:I understand what your saying & its half true to that, but I say that & still think that based on the following:When you Play Games wether or Not its a PC or PS3 the Games are made to Run at a Recommended Resolution (by Default) so what I am saying here has nothing to do with OverClocking, or Sli Setup etc...Just Imagine if you could OverClock the Playsation 3... then we could Compare the Differences, but PS3 Games are Made to Run at a Particular Resolution wether its 720p or 1080p. 100% of the Games I have on Computer I can Play at Maxed Settings Running Resolutions at 1280x720 with about 85% I can run at 1920x1080 without any Problems (Yes No Dual Card Config). Some High End Games on my PC are: Far Cry 2, Crysys, FEAR 2, NecroVisioN, Painkiller & Wolfenstein.Having said that, FPS may be Important for some but for me no what I mean by this is if I can Run my Games at there full Glory without any jerkyness I am happy, so whats the Point in getting like 200fps when there is no problem running the Same game on Exactly the same settings with 100fps where in both cases Minimum fps wouyld be between 30 & 45fps.Comparing: This is how people should be Comparing Games.PS3: The Game 1280x720Computer: The Game(Same Game Title) 1280x720PS3: The Game 1920x1080 (Must Stated on Game Cover) to be afficial.Computer: The Game(Same Game Title) 1920x1080[/citation]


All that said is "i know absolutly nothing about what im talking about. All im doing is bending over and talking out my rear to get a point acrost that makes no sense unless your a fanboy who wants to believe it."

Sorry dude but your not only off your rocker with that post but what drugs do you do cuz man i could use some of that right now. Just get over it.. Consoles are not going to be even close to a pc's power ever. Even when they come out sure they can do graphics that mostly look like a pc but they dont have even a fraction of the power of a pc.