Xbox, Gamecube or PS2. Which for you?

In My Humble Opinion
21

If I was under the age of 8, it would be the GC. Nintendo have a bad habit of churning out games for kindergarten kiddies (one word: ‘Mario’). Nintendo should have given up 10 years ago.

The XBOX is an interesting proposition - Microsoft appear to be in the same position that Sony were in 1995. The parallels are remarkable:

  • both companies are multinational giants, specialising in mass production of consumer products across a wide range of areas (Sony with different types of appliances, Microsoft with different ranges of PC hardware and software)
  • both companies introduced their products with competitive pricing
  • both companies took on the market when there were two very established players (Sony took on Nintendo and Sega, Microsoft is taking on Nintendo and Sony).

Sony have developed a reputation for machines that are very competent, as well as excellent games that really push the performance envelopes of the machine and have killer gameplay. A lot like Sega back in their heyday (1989-1995). Of course, Sega no longer make consoles.

For mine, PS2 is the device to have. It’s the oldest, but it also has the best range of games. This is the same reason why I chose the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) over the SNES about 10 years ago.

However, if history repeats itself then Sony’s days as a console manufacturer will be numbered by the time the PS3 is released, a killer car racing game will be released for the XBOX in time for Xmas 2002 and subsequent world domination for the XBOX will occur, and Nintendo will still sell technically interesting machines with the shittiest, most childish games on the market. :stuck_out_tongue:

22

As a wise muppet was wont to say, “Size matters not.” At least, I’m hoping this is true… or else I haven’t much hope for my love life. :smiley:

23

Size matters to me cause where am I supposed to put it? I already have a lot of game systems. Plus, I got to plug them in to my tv somehow. Sure, my tv has a/v s-video, RF inputs & I have to use the a/v inputs on my vcr for one game system. I have room for one more system connected to the a/v on the back of the vcr, which has two a/v inputs.

Lots of ps2 games already:

" PlayStation2 has about 175 titles. Xbox will have about 15 to 20 available games at launch, while Nintendo GameCube will now have as many as 15 games at launch."
http://web.montereyca.com/content/monterey/2001/11/14/business/e1.games.1114.htm

I preordered FFXI in August 2000 :slight_smile: really.

24

The US PS2 has a Hard drive bay. The HD fits inside the PS2.

The early japanese PS2s OTOH, lacked the HD bay, so there is a external HD made for them. I hear the new Japanese PS2s have the bay, but I can’t confirm it.

As for the price, I agree with you. Blech. What’s it up to now, $150? Not to mention the expensive network adaptor you need to use the HD. (oops, just did mention it…)

As for the OP, I really have no idea right now. I’m leaning towards the Gamecube becase of all the first party games. Mario, Zelda. Yess!! [heh…]

Then again, PS2 has square. XBOX has some Sega games that I really want to play. (Shenmue 2, anyone?) Argh! Which one to choose?

Actually, I don’t have to make a choice. I’ll get them all eventually. I don’t know when eventually is, though. 5 years from now?

25

As i mentioned in a thread currently running. In my household there are already a PS1 a Dreamcast and a 64. I’m planning on buying a PS2, my kids want a GC (and I’m a Zelda freak). Based on history I’ll probably get both.

I will not be getting an X-Box for several reasons:

MS rep. It’s too new ( I have DC flashbacks). The PS1 is backwards compatible.

By the way nobodies mentioned it, but what the freaaking deal with Nintendo introducing their own version of the CD/DVD format. I always considered there reliance on Carts as their weakness. Going with something that’ll have to be specially produced seems to be a step in the wrong direction, which may explain the low number of releases at launch.

26

I dunno about it being any harder to produce, but I’m sure it’ll inhibit piracy if normal sized DVDs won’t fit inside.So there’s an incentive for Nintendo right there.
Though, there supposedly is a normal-sized dvd playing Gamecube in the works, due to come out sometime next year.(For additional cost of course)

27

My family has been looking at the Playstation 2 for about a year. We’re still looking.

First, a little footnote on the Dreamcast (since that’s what I got now). Always remember that when a system fails, it’s has NOTHING to do with the quality of the system. Absolutely nothing. It’s politics, pure and simple. In the case of the DC, it didn’t do too good in the Japanese market for whatever reason (we don’t even know why; that’s how crazy this industry is). So everyone kindly spare me that garbage about how Sega “screwed up” or whatnot. I can tell you with 100% confidence that they did not. It’s just the crazy, random, insane luck of the draw. (I figure that’s how Nintendo started marketing the SNES as a frikkin’ “family system”. Still haven’t gotten that albatross off their collective nekcs.)

If I had to decide on a next next next next generation system now (16-bit era being next the first, Neo Geo being next2, and Playstation/Dreamcast being next3), here’s how I’d rate them:

X-Box: No. No, no, no, no. Did I mention no? My beef isn’t that Microsoft is a massive, competition-squashing conglomerate, or even that they often put out inferior products. My beef is that they’re a computer company. I, and everyone else who’s going to actually use our home consoles (including a number of children who don’t have three months to get used to the mechanics of a game) have no use for any video game made by a computer company. Even worse, they’ve touted this as the “ultimate” system in terms of capability. I can see it now…“Super Grand Prix Dream Emotion Passion, with FIFTY completely undrivable tracks, over THREE HUNDRED cars that handle like cement trucks, EIGHTY computer drivers that’d have Dale Jarret curled up and crying like a baby, and over 300,000 adjustments for THE MOST REALISTIC spinouts, wrecks, and blown engines EVER!!” Excuse me, they expect us to pay them for this?

Gamecube: First there was the NES, which was a masterpiece. Then the Super NES, which had some great games but got bogged down in Mortal Kombat hysteria at the worst possible time. Then the N64, which also had some great games, but not really a whole lot. (I’d have loved to play California Speed, Cruisin’ World, or even Castlevania 64.) Also a number of “exclusives” in a futile attempt to get more people to buy this system. Now the Gamecube, which is about to continue the tradition. Because games are supposed to Depict Cartoon-like Violence In A Fantasy Setting, or however the hell that went.

Tell you what…if they come up with a joystick with rapid-fire and slow, a Gameshark, an inexpensive modchip that comes preinstalled in the system, and ten arcade conversions, I’m sold.

(Hey, this is exactly what my Dreamcast had! Don’t tell ME I’m being unreasonable!)

Playstation 2: I admit it…I’m slowly coming around. As slowly as the games are coming out for this system, but I’m coming around. There are a number of good “party” games, including CART Fury and Gauntlet Legends, the RPGs haven’t taken over everything (which is good; my favorite RPG of all time is Ultima Underworld), the perhiperals are there (there’s even a new joystick if the one I got now stops working for any reason), and overall Sony…after stumbling horrifically in the beginning…seems to have gotten its act together.

Just one not-so-tiny caveat…imports. We WILL be playing imports, so we NEED a system with a modchip so it can play both types of games. I was able to get a modded DC just by asking, and we already have a modden PSX, so I’m not backing down on this. There are TONS of fantastic games that are never converted, which is why we need this pretty badly. As long as Sony lets its petty politics get in the way of profits, we’ll never buy a PS2.
That’s about it. The state of console gaming isn’t too hot right now, which is why I’m glad to still have the arcades.

28

Good question, especially with Christmas right around the corner. I would probably choose a PS2 straight out if I didn’t already own a PlayStation, for games like Xenogears, Final Fantasy VII and IX, and Street Fighter Alpha 3. I would still probably go for a PS2 since it seems like Square and Capcom would develop most of their games for it… although I’m wondering if I’ll ever see Capcom vs. SNK on a Sony system. Since I usually only tend to play fighting games and RPGs (particularly by Capcom and Square), PS2 looks like the best bet. The addition of a DVD player doesn’t hurt, either.

The only consideration that would really change my mind about this is if Gamecube and/or X-box were to support games like those. If Nintendo in particular were able to get Capcom and Square to make games for it, I would buy a Gamecube; since I’ve already got a PlayStation, I would just want something that would support new releases in the styles of games I like. Gamecube would come with the additional benefit of games like Mario Kart (hopefully) and Smash Brothers, which would be great; so if GC supported Capcom and Square games, I would be able to have my cake and eat it too (for about a hundred bucks less, at that).

29

Capcom and Square are getting ready to take a backseat to Rockstar.

:slight_smile:

30

I have PS2 and I’m quite happy with it. Game selection is already great, with more to come. But the main reason I picked PS2…Tekken Tag baby!!! I’m obsessive about Tekken and the Tag just makes me feel all gooey inside.

I don’t think I’ld touch X Box, but I mighty even spring for a Gamecube on the strength of future Zeldas alone.

31

I’m glad I made an impulse purchase. I like my new toy.

32

You don’t have space in your house for something that is 15 cubic inches larger? Where do you live, a port-a-potty?

And what, pray tell, was Sony, when they first created the PSX? They had even LESS experience with video games than Microsoft did. This argument, IMOSHO, is rather frail.

33

“You don’t have space in your house for something that is 15 cubic inches larger? Where do you live, a port-a-potty?”

You wish. Dude, I have vcrs, tvs, psx2, n64, snes, dc, etec etc I don’t have room for a humoungous xbox that is probably no better than the computer I have already. I don’t need the xbox when I have a computer with similar specs.

Even the GC uses a similar graphics chip that my computer has. An ATI one, I believe. The psx2 on the other hand, is very tricky to duplicate for me.

34

Jeeez. Here’s another argument I’ve heard in various incarnations.
I’ve heard so many people complain that the Xbox is just a stripped down PC that only plays games.
Well, DUH. What do they think the PS2 is, a clothesline?
It’s a computer. all video game systems are, essentially.

And as far as a learning curve goes, none of the games released for the Xbox have been that difficult to grasp.
Heck, me and the wife (who doesn’t play video games at all) were able to play a display model, without any instructions, and had a good time.
From what I’ve read, MS is going through pains to make sure all games released meet their criteria for quality and NOT just being a straight PC port.

And as far as MS’s qualifications to make enter the market, “ditto” what SPOOFE said.

35

Well . . my strategy so far has been to wait for all 3 systems to be out, thinking that soon PS2 will lower it’s unacceptable (to me) $299 price-point sometime soon. I’ve also been building up Yahoo! points to buy a gift certificate to make the bite even less. My thinking is I already have PS1 games and that it has a DVD player too.

My wife threw in a monkey wrench when she revealed she’s getting a free DVD player off the Internet by buying shampoo off this website, so suddenly justifying the extra cost for the PS2 because of the DVD player is now harder to do.

Nonetheless I’m sticking to my guns. I have a buddy that bought “Grand Turismo A-spec” and “NBA Street”, and raves about them, saying now he can’t go back to PS1. As for Playstation stumbling, have you ever played any of the first PS1 games? They really sucked. Now look at them.

Nintendo is too kiddie oriented, though I’m guessing they will try and shed that image with this new system. Microsoft has a bad habit of rushing products out to make a deadline tp a lot of fanfare, then try and patch them up later. That’s going to be hard to do if X-Box is a lemon.

I’ll go with the console that has been out for a year at a lower pricepoint while X-Box and Nintendo use their customers as guinea pigs.

Then again, you can get a bitchin Dreamcast for $80 . . . :slight_smile:

36

I haven’t been checking the PS2 import scene very closely, but aren’t you able to get a chip-mod for the PS2 already? Lots of game stores near me are doing a brisk business with imported PS2 games, and I doubt their customers have Japanese PS2 units.

Oh, the arcades are even more depressing these days than the home console scene – just about everything now is a Dance Dance Revolution wannabe, or Yet Another Gun Game. :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah, and a lot of folks avoided the PlayStation initially because they weren’t sure how Sony would do.

And to their credit, even before the PlayStation was released, Sony had a long history of developing and selling high-quality, reliable consumer electronics. The only thing Microsoft is known for these days are competition-crushing monopolistic tactics, software that requires seven or eight Service Packs to fix, and copying everything Apple does and peddling it as “innovation.” :slight_smile:

37

Well, I wouldn’t go that far.

I will agree the Dreamcast is a great little piece of hardware. The Jaguar was a piece of junk pretty much the day it came out.

USUALLY its politics. Not always.

38

I eventually buy a Gamecube. Right now, I’m mooching off my friends for time on their PS2 and don’t see any need for me to buy one as well. From what I’ve seen the biggest strength of the X-Box is first person shooters. Since I find FPS a big turn off, I’ll pass. Besides Nintendo makes some really fun party games even if they’re kiddie. (Mario Party, Super Monky Ball, Super Smash Brothers) I also love serious games but in the RPG format not FPS or fighter games. So if I move away, for grad school, I’ll buy a PS2 but for now I’ll mooch and buy a Gamecube.

39

I agree with Wolverine… I’m going Gamecube… Once you get past the “kiddy” look of the games, you have some pretty stinkin’ fun games! I’ve spent nights with a N64 and nights with a PS/PS2… The N64 we can take one game and spend all night on it. both PS and PS2… we’ll play for awhile, get tired of it… play for awhile, get tired of that one.

Nintendo always seems to make cool games.

40

i have a Dreamcast.

i have a Genesis.

i even have a Game Gear.

i tell you now…

i shall now and forever follow where the holy one, Sega, and moreso it’s lord SonicTeam goes.
om… om… seeeEEEeeeEEEeeegaaaaAAAAaaaa…

Seee-gaaa…

[sub]i guess i’m a bit of a “Sonic” fan…[/sub]