Ok, my friend and I are constantly debating over this, and even though it might be trivial, its a valid question. We’ve all seen the charts that Sony put out for the PS2, and said that it was going to push 60 million polygons a second. heck yea thats awesome, but a big issue that Sony diddnt tell anyone. That number is actually raw data, meaning no sound or texture was put in. Nintendo’s GAMECUBE is saying that it will push 12 million…(and actually 2nd party publishers say more like 20), but thats not raw data. tests were done, and IGN.com released the info that the PS2 in fact, runs at about 4-6 million polygons. so much for marketing. So, what do you guys think? Nintendo has changed its marketing plan so that games can be made easier, and so the big N is getting a LOT of suport, while the PS2 is awful to make games for, atleast thats what all the 2nd and 3rd party publishers are saying. oh well. I’d love to hear what you guys think.
I think that this’ll be in IMHO faster than you can say “A great debate about which unreleased games console will prove more popular? Why yes!”
good point. now how the heck do you change boards? 
Nintendo is a kiddish company. They don’t want anyone over 12 playing their games. If you want to play games get a dreamcast or a computer. Probably a Xbox too, its pratically going to be a computer.
Atari 2600. Accept no substitutes.
I can agree to that…but Nintendo says its switched gears on its design. its now about making it easy to develop for, not graphics. that means that theres gonna be more games, and with that in mind, more mature games. Also, look at what the big N has been up to lately…shooters, and BFD. that proves nintendo is gonna be more mature. and the Xbox is doing what Sony did, its all Raw data. its actually going to be a little less than the cube, if not equal
On one hand, we have a giant company pushing bland entertainment for the lowest common denominator, and on the other hand, we have a giant company pushing bland entertainment for the lowest common denominator.
Let me think on this one…
What?
Well, Sony made a big mistake with the PS2 when they added the ability to play DVD movies. That brings up laser difficulties (DVD laser reads the disc constantly, game laser reads the disc once every couple of seconds). If you play too many DVD movies on your PS2, the laser will burn out (though Sony’s fixing the problem with future PS2’s).
Nintendo’s not even bothering with DVD movies. Last I heard, the Dolphin is using it’s own customized disc which holds about as much info as a DVD, but it’s about an inch smaller in diameter. And, once again, it’s games will be much easier to program, which means that you’ll find more Dolphin games than PS2 games.
Think of it this way… there’re hundreds of PSX games, but a lot of them are crap, since any mom-and-pop programming company can make games for them. But for PS2, the games that are out now have been in the works for years.
However, I think everyone’s going to wait for X-box. The only thing that’ll keep the Dolphin afloat will be Mario, Poke’mon, and Zelda. And Metroid, if they FINALLY make an updated Metroid game for Dolphin.
As long as Mario Dolphin is as impressive as Mario 64 was when it came out, I’ll be happy.
Nintendo is a brilliant company. There was some serious griping about the lack of mature games on the N64[sup]1[/sup]. However, you do realize that there is now a whole generation of kiddies literally raised on Nintendo. It seems to me that we’ll see their game market evolve in the next three+ years. Nintendo isn’t going anywhere.
Sony has lost me big time, but if Silent Hill 2 and MGS2 aren’t released anywhere else I might have a hard time not getting it. Sony still has some nice games coming out, but I’m holding out on the system big time.
Dreamcast is the system that should. I love it. I think it is remarkably undertapped. I hate Sega, or rather hated, until the Dreamcast which I bought with love But they’ve lost Japan completely and I think its all downhill from there.
Really, my concern is if the XBox is gonna bust everyone up. Recent article in Electronic Gaming Monthly did a huge write up on the XBox and I am more hyped than hyped.
Oh, Nintendo’s version of the DVD does hold less data, about half IIRC. That’s about 3+ CDs and most companies probably won’t tap it. I mean, a 2GB game is a HUGE game. And you though Soul Reaver 2 was a long time coming!
[sup]1[/sup] Turok series, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Conker’s Bad Fur Day (coming), Shadowman, Resident Evil 2… Nintendo has a smaller selection of mature games, to be sure, but they are damn good.
A die-hard Sony Fan here.
Sony came off the starting line with PS1 like a bat out of hell. Nintendo and Sega had no idea what happened to them.
I’ve got a PS2, and I have to tell you that it is awesome. There are only two games we play right now, but the are awesome. (Timesplitters and TekkenTag).
Spoof…
I have to disagree with you about the laser thing. One of the reasons I was able to justify the PS2 (now that I’m an adult:)), was that I needed a DVD player anyway. It may suck for Sony to fix the problem, but it is a major selling point. So is backwards compatibility.
ARL…
Nintendo? Brilliant?
Actually, I have to give them respect for creating the Play Station. You do know they were the reason Sony even got into gaming don’t you? Then they backed out at the last moment and left Sony holding the bag.
Boy were they pissed when Sony decided to just sell it on their own:)
X-box…
I’m all for competition. Since I’m no longer restrained by budgetary considerations, I can own more than one console:)
Part of me is rooting for Sony and the PS2, but part of me knows that no console has EVER been able to hold on to the top slot for more than one generation.
(Atari, ColecoVision, Sega, Nintendo, Sony…x-box?) And was Sega EVER on top?
Well I might as well toss in some more info while I’m at it. about the Dreamcast aynrandlover, your absolutely right. that system is just amazing. its a long way from what the PS2 is, but atleast they are incorperating some real games. oh, BTW to everyone, its not Dolphin, its GameCube. also to spoof, I doubt the laser would burn through or out. its just unlikely. I’ve been to my friends house and watched a movie and played Dynasty Wariors…an awesome game mind you. but the DVD player problem, yes, you are absolutly right there, why you ask? money. PS2’s are running at around $400 and I’ve seen them up to $550, which I think both prices are rediculous. Thats why Nintendo is saying that its a “game system” not an overall entertainment center. By dropping to the 8 cm DVD disks, and no movie player, the games will be around $30 to $40, and the system is going to be released this October for about $150 to $200. smaller disks also mean faster load times. They’ll hold about 1.5 gigs. thats 190 Super Mario 64’s on it. thats also 47 or so Zelda, OOT’s…thats a lot mind you. and trust me, dont believe everything bout the XBox. they are hyping it like Sony did for the PS2, and look what came out of that! egh
Really? What about the original NES followed by the Super Nintendo? The NES crushed the Sega Master System, and while the Sega Genesis came back and did pretty well, definetely giving the Super Nintendo a run for it’s money, I believe the Super Nintendo still came out on top.
Polygon numbers are basically worthless metrics for comparing console power. As you’ve discovered, not all polygons are created equal – it matters a great deal how the polygons are organized and what effects are applied to them.
I’m on a team working on an Xbox title and we’ve discovered that polygon counts aren’t even the primary limiting factor for the graphics. Our primary bottleneck is the number of calls we make from the CPU to the GPU.
Right now the PS2 has only a slight graphics edge on the Dreamcast but this will likely change when the developers really learn how to use the hardware. Xbox and GameCube should be comparable in power and both will be substantially prettier than PS2. Xbox probably will be out for Xmas 2001 (just in time to go head-to-head with the second wave of PS2 titles) and GameCube probably will slip into 2002.
The ease of developing for the Xbox may let the Xbox developers steal a march on the PS2 and release launch titles that are prettier than the PS2 second wave – something that PS2 failed to do with Dreamcast. If that happens then Microsoft will likely be top dog for the next console business cycle.
They are $299.
Bad news dude.
The second wave of PS2 games is due out in March.
Possibly.
I see Sony in a damn good place to be though.
A lot of gamers just HATE Bill Gates though, so there is going to be some resistance in the beginning. If it truly does have the BEST games, then it will eventually win them over. (although they will hate to admit it)
However, Sony has a very loyal base, and is doing a good job saturating the market with the PS2. Even with all the problems landing a PS2 before Christmas, they got over a million consoles out before the end of the year. They had the largest amount of consoles shipping at launch ever. There was just that much demand for it.
They could easily sell another 4-5 million consoles this year. You know they are going to drop the price as soon as the X-Box comes out. But then again…Gates only plays to win and dominate an industry.
I see an awesome situation developing for us consumers:)
I always thought Genesis beat Super Nintendo. Personally, I had the Nintendo system, (back then I didn’t have the budget to get both) so I hated to admit it, but I think their system was better.
I guess there is an objective way to answer that question. If we could find the numbers for console sales for 92-95(?) we could see who sold the most.
Even if they did hold on for two systems(which I doubt), the precedent is very strong for the top dog to get knocked off.
[Moderator Hat: ON]
Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to IMHO we go…
David B, SDMB Great Debates Moderator
[Moderator Hat: OFF]
Sony + Squaresoft = the reason to buy a PS2.
I dunno, I think Nintendo games have always been pretty easy…
From a marketing point of view, I think Nintendo shot itself in the foot (arguably in the head) by making the Gamecube look like it does, namely, as Daily Radar puts it “like it was built as a purse for Teletubbies.” I mean, seriously, if Nintendo is trying to shake its image as a kiddie platform, this was not the way to go. Might as well try to sell more Pikachu edition N64 guys…
Also against Nintendo is its lack of a viable franchise - its killer app. You have Mario, who still has some steam behind him (though nostalgia notwithstanding, he’s not going to appeal to older gamers) and Pokemon, the undisputed king of kiddie gaming. Turok and Perfect Dark may be great games (though I disliked the former and never played that latter, personally), but the former is a franchise on its last leg, and as PD is only one game, I’m not sure it even counts as a franchise. And on Sony’s side we have not only Square (probably the biggest single factor in favor of Sony), but MGS and a plethora of sports and racing titles, including Gran Turismo, one of the best racers ever.
Microsoft’s X-Box on the other hand, is a lot more interesting. It stands to rise head and shoulders above either platform as the king of “mature” gaming, if not for the fact that it, and many of its games, are targeting an audience that, it seems to me, is made up of PC elitists. Personally, I have the feeling that by the time the X-Box comes out, nVidia’s own NV20 Ultra boards will kick the crap out of whatever they put in the X-Box, and as for the processor…well, a 733 MHz P3? Are you kidding?
Here is an article discussing the upcoming X-Box PS2 face off, for whomever may be interested.