Time for the second and part of our article series about the coming game consoles. If you read the first, or at least glanced at it, you know how the development up to date has looked like and why the coming consoles looks like they do.

Now its time for the last part in our series about game consoles. If you’ve read the first part, or if you just took a quick look at it, you know how the development has been and why the following generation look like it does.


We’re going to take a look at these three.

We nearly got through all earlier consoles in the first part, and now in part two we will take a closer look at the coming consoles; Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo “Revolution”. Especially with the first two we have reported about a lot of new features, while the last one has been more of a rare catch. We have tried to summarize these three as good as we can, and we hope that this will help you when choosing what console to buy.

We will start with the specs and some additional facts about these three consoles.


We will start with the console from Sony, mainly because they are the leading actor today.

 















































































































































































Sony Playstation 3


System

CPU: Cell
Frequency: 3.2 GHz
Cores: 1 PPE + 7 SPE
L2 cache: 512 KB (+ 256 KB SRAMfor each SPE)
Floating point performance: 218 GFlops (only CPU)
Transistors: 234 million
Memory type: Samsung XDR DRAM
Memory frequency: 3.2 GHz
Memory bus: 64 bit
Memory amount: 256 MB
Memory bandwidth: 25.6 GB/s

Graphic

Circuit: nVidia RSX (baserad på G70)
Frequency: 550 MHz
Resolution: 480i – 1080p (640*480 interlaced – 1920*1080)
Floating point performance: 1.8 TFlops (356 GFlops programmable)
Transistors: 330 million
Memory frequency: 700 MHz
Memory bus: 128 Bit
Memory amount: 256 MB GDDR3 VRAM
Memory bandwidth: 22.4 GB/s
Pixel Shader: 3.0
Vertex Shader: 3.0
Pixel Fillrate/Pixel Pipelines: (?) / 16+(?) (48+total)
Vertex Fillrate/Vertex pipelines: 1.1 GT/s / 32+(?) (48+ total)
Shader performance: 154*109 operations/s

Sound

Channels: 6 (5.1)
Format: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS och LPCM

Network

Wire / ports: Gigabit Ethernet / 3
Wireless: IEEE 802.11g (WiFi), Bluetooth 2.0

Controllers

Amount: 7
Connection: USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi & IP protokoll

Other

Sound outputs: Optic & analog
Video outpus: 2*HDMI, component, s-video and composit
Other outputs / ports: USB 2.0 / 6 (4 front + 2 rear)
Media support: Blu-ray, DVD DL, DVD, SACD, CD, Memory stick (also Duo), CompactFlash I & II, SD and 2.5" harddrive.
Measurements: 320*240×80 mm
Price: $400-500 (?)

The price is a big question mark.

We will round up with a picture on the controller:

There is a lot of numbers to keep track of; there is a more detailed analysis after the part with the specs. Now it’s time for Xbox 360.


This is the console that fights about being the center of you digital home with Sony’s Playstation 3.

 















































































































































































Microsoft Xbox 360


System

CPU: Xenon
Frequency: 3.2 GHz
Cores: 3 (two threads per core)
L2 cache: 1 MB
Floating point performance: 115 GFlops (only CPU)
Transistors: 165 million
Memory type: GDDR-3 RAM
Memory frequency: 700 MHz
Memory bus: 128 bit
Memory amount: 512 MB (shared)
Memory bandwidth: 22.4 GB/s

Graphics

Circuit: Xenos (ATi R500)
Frequency: 500 MHz
Resolution: 480i – 1080i (640*480 interlaced – 1920*1080 interlaced)
Floating point performance: 937 GFlops (240 GFlops programmable)
Transistors: 337 million (where 105 are eDRAM)
Memory frequency: 2 GHz
Memory bus: 64 bit
Memory amount: 10 MB eDRAM
Memory bandwidth: 32 GB/s (GPU to eDRAM)
Pixel Shader: 3.0
Vertex Shader: 3.0
Pixel Fillrate/Pixel Pipelines: 16 Gsamples/s (at 4xMSAA) / 48 shared
Vertex Fillrate/Vertex pipelines: 0.5 GT/s / 48 shared
Shader performance: 96*109 operations/s

Sound

Channels: 6 (5.1)
Format: Dolby Digital 5.1 and LPCM.

Network

Wire / ports: Gigabit Ethernet / 1
Wireless: IEEE 802.11g (WiFi) (only via adapter)

Controllers

Amount: 4
Connection: USB 2.0 or wireless via RF

Other

Sound outputs: Optic & analog through different adapters
Video outpus: VGA, component, s-video and komposit through different adapters.
Other outputs / ports: USB 2.0 / 6 (4 fram + 2 bak)
Media support: DVD DL, DVD, CD, CD-DA, photo CD and 2.5″ 20GB harddrive.
Measurements: 309*258×83 mm
Price: $399 / $299

Xbox 360 will come in two versions: Core, with only a base unit, one controller with a cord and regular A/V cables. The other version will have a cordless controller, a hardrive, a headset and component-A/V cables. Down below you can find a list of accessories and what they will cost:

 

Accessories
Harddrive
$99.99
Memory card
$39.99
Controller
$39.99
Wireless controller
$49.99
Play & Charge Kit
$19.99
Rechargable batteries
$11.99
Wireless networking adapter
$99.99
Headset
$19.99
Universal Media Remote
$29.99
Component HD adapter
$39.99
S-video adapter
$29.99
Faceplate
$19.99
VGA adapter
$39.99

These prices tells us that buying the cheaper on is just fooling yopurself if you’ve though of using the console to any real extent as only buying a harddrive will make up for the difference. And you don’t get access to Xbox Live! fo free.
We finish with a picture of the controller:

 

And now more numbers, you sometimes wonder if it ever will end… But there is only one console left now. The Nintendo, which is called Revolution for now.


The last and the smallest in this group is Nintendo’s console, which they call Revolution. We can start with telling you that they haven’t released any numbers, and that they haven’t “leaked” any specs. Do you wonder why? There are only three persons on this planet that know how this console will look like at the end, and none of them are too eager to spread this information.

 















































































































































































Nintendo Revolution


System

CPU: Broadway
Frequency: 2.5 GHz (?)
Cores: 2 (?)
L2 cache: 1MB (?)
Floating point performance: (?)
Transistors: (?)
Memory type: 1T-SRAM
Memory frequency: 700MHz (?)
Memory bus: 128bit (?)
Memory amount: 512 MB (?)
Memory bandwidth: 11.2GB/s (?)

Graphics

Circuit: Hollywood (ATi RN520)
Frequency: 600 MHz (?)
Resolution: 480p (<2048x1268px)
Floating point performance: (?)
Transistors: (?)
Memory frequency: 833MHz (?)
Memory bus: 128 bit (?)
Memory amount: 256MB (?)
Memory bandwidth: 13.3GB/s (?)
Pixel Shader: 3.0
Vertex Shader: 3.0
Pixel Fillrate/Pixel Pipelines: (?) / 32 shared
Vertex Fillrate/Vertex pipelines: 0.5 GT/s / 32 shared
Shader performance: 50*109 operations/s

Sound

Channels: 5.1 (?)
Format: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS (?)

Network

Wire / ports:  –
Wireless: IEEE 802.11g (WiFi)

Controllers

Amount: 4+
Connection: Wireless or through GameCube-ports

Other

Sound outputs: Optic (?)
Video outpus: Component (?)
Other outputs / ports: USB 2.0 / 2
Media support: DVD for games, DVD-movie through an adapter and 512MB exchanglable(?) SD(?)flashminne.
Measurements: Three DVD-covers high (?)
Price: $200-$250

According to a statement by Perrin Kaplan, Vice VP Nintendo America the Revolution will not have a hardrive. But they’re somewhat unclear about that part internally. This is only a reputation though. There will, likely, be a couple of different adapters for A/V.

And last, and absolutely not smallest, we have the controller:

Revolution Controller

The funniest part with this controller must be all the fake ones that have appeared along the way. The things you can see down below have been circulating the web and in our own forums. You can find more here.

 




 
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Now there is not so many more numbers to keep track on. But what can we say about all this then?


We’ve presented loads of data which probably hasn’t really said all that much. If you compare the figures with current PCs they are looking quite good, the least to say. But to give you a better overview here follows a comparison of the most important parts.

 

The processors/architectures

We have at least two complex and relatively untested processors/architectures from what we know. We’ve seen a number of articles about the theoretical performance of both of them and the criticism has been mixed with praise and not so much praise among the experts and thinkers, but we can conclude from all of these is that there is a lot of potential with both of them. The problem lies in whether the potential is used or not, or if you even get close to it, especially to begin with. With time there will be games that use the full potential of the consoles.

That is, if the console survives. If you read part one of our coverage you might have gotten some vibes from both Saturn and Jaguar when you read about how complex both Xbox 360 and especially Playstation3 seems to be. Xbox 360 has a relatively PC-like construction though which should tend for better survival and it also seems the game developers prefer it over the Playstation 3. A lot will depend on how well both Sony and Microsoft has designed their SDKs (software Development Kit). It might be worth mentioning that Playstation 2 had a very advanced architecture which the game developers did not like the least, but that didn’t stop it from almost total domination. However this much thanks to its backwards compatibility, which also Playstation 3 will have.

 


Cell

Xenon

Broadway

Exactly what Revolution will bring is uncertain. Whatever hard facts you may have read I can assure you that they are not true, or at least not confirmed by Nintendo. What seems probable is a PPC-based processor at at most 2.5GHz and two cores, but some rumours have stated a 1.8GHz single core PPC, which seems likely though. Considering the tiny size of the console you don’t have much room for cooling and PPC is in turn a rather hot architecture in many ways, especially as the speeds rise, and the console is suppose to be quiet. All and all we should be able to expect an architecture which is simpler than the other two. Nintendo’s VP Satoru Iwata has said that the console is suppose to be very simple to develop games for.

 

Graphics

A really hot subject which is really hard to say much about. We know that Playstation 3’s RSX-chip shares the same foundation as GeForce 7800, but is suppose to be faster in almost every aspect; more pipelines, both pixel and vertex. We also know that Xbox 360’s R500-chip, a.k.a. Xenos, will share some parts with ATi’s R520, but exactly what is uncertain, as so many other things. R500 will use a uniform shader-design, which means that it has a total of 48 shaders divided into groups of 16 pipelines each which can work as either vertex or pixel shaders, but not both at the same time.

The only thing we know about Nintendo’s chip, RN520(?), is that is being developed by ATi. The figures seen on the last page are estimated more or less. if you studied RSX and Xenos figures you could see that the theoretical performance of RSX was 50-100% higher/better than for Xenos, but in the end this is a bit misleading, but as the number of playable games for Playstation 3 are very, very few it’s impossible to make an estimation. The same goes for RN520. The actual performance of all three are most likely pretty much the same. We’ve heard rumours of a PPU with its own memory which in theory actually would make Revolution even more capable than Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, but that is feeling very remote.

 

Acura RSX
(Acura) RSX
Xenos Vesparum
Xenos (Vesparum)
Hollywood
Hollywood

Both Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 will have no problem with feeding you television with HD-resolutions up to 1920*1080px (1080i, Xbox 360) which looks good at least texture wise. The complexity of the objects are actually not even higher than current PC-games. However there will be capacity for drawing an extreme amount of objects on the other hand and multiplayer with up to 50 people in some ages are suppose to be a piece of cake. Revolution will support 480p from what it seems, but has potential for much higher resolutions. Rumours state that there are internal disagreements regarding HD-resolution support. The bandwidth is narrower than the other two though, which makes it all and all a very tricky question.

 

The controllers

It feels good, or perhaps a better word would be safe, that both Sony and Microsoft has chosen to go with a trusted design of the controllers. Even if Sony’s controller may look like a banana spray painted with chrome it is suppose to be very similar to the earlier controllers. Microsoft has really taken advantage of all the criticism it received for its first controller and chosen to use the S-version and refine it further, and early reviews state that they have done excellent job with it. Xbox 360 will have controller both with and without cord. Playstation 3 will have a similar support.

Then we have Nintendo and its the least to say original creation. That the controller was the reason the console was called Revolution to begin with is not the least bit surprising. Nintendo has completely left the concept it once created over 20 years ago and we now have a more or less remote like thing and to this you can then connect an analog joystick. According to the previews we’ve seen so far a lot of the actual gaming will be how you hold, move and turn the controller itself. It can act as everything from a fishing pole to a sword or simply as a joystick. A very interesting solution which first caused some concern for your’s truly but as this is far from the first time Nintendo has launched a controller that has taken a new stance there is still some calm in the bottom of my heart. The impressions with those that has gotten the opportunity to use the controller have been that you get into it pretty quickly and that after using it for a while you wonder if you have ever used any other type of controller. It seems t both gives a more direct experience and better in-game feeling than the ”traditional” controllers do.

 

 

The storage

Blu-ray vs HD DVD, or perhaps Blu-ray vs DVD. Sony is the leading brand behind the Blu-ray format and the choice of integrating it into its coming gaming console was hardly a tough one. Microsoft didn’t have any HD-media support to begin with, it hadn’t decided what format to go with, but this has changed now it is now backing up Toshiba and its HD DVD format. Xbox 360 will not come with any HD DVD support though. If there will be a HD DVD version released later on remains to see. It wouldn’t surprise me, but Microsoft can’t announce that an updated console will arrive later and launch Xbox 360 now. No one would buy it now, but simply wait for the latter. Perhaps around the launch of Playstation 3 and Revolution? Revolution doesn’t even support DVD-movie to begin with which is simply weak, but then again this helps keeping the price down (DVD-movie support will be available through an adapter).

Playstation 3’s games will be released on Blu-ray discs which will be hard to make copies of, much thanks to the lack of Blu-ray players/burners and media plus the fact that these will be rather expensive to begin with, at least when the console arrive. We have also received some information about the triple copy protection which Blu-ray uses and it is looking quite firm and rigid. A drawback is of course that the production costs will be higher than with regular DVDs.

Xbox 360’s games will be available on DVD and DVD DL, which most likely means that it will suffer from the same problem as the previous console with loads of games circulating the web, even before they have been launched officially. Revolution will also use DVD discs so the chances are that we will see the same thing here. It has turned out that some games for Xbox 360 will require more than one disc, which means that somewhere i mid-game you will have to get up and change discs. Revolution will most likely not suffer from this as it doesn’t support the same high resolution that Xbox 360 which should make it possible to limit the game to just one disc.

Both Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 can be extended with 2,5″ harddrives. Xbox 360 will have a 20GB HDD, while Sony’s VP has made statements pointing to that a whole series of harddrives will be available and that these will come with a special Linux-OS to strengthen that Playstation 3 really is a computer. It might be worth mentioning that Linux is suppose to help with the identification at communication with other computers and exactly how advanced it will be, and how much a computer it will be, remains to see. Everything from 20GB to 120GB has been mentioned, but we will have to wait and see how much substance there were in that statement. Nintendo comes with a 512MB flash memory for saving data. Whether it is exchangeable or upgradeable we don’t know, but it seems you will be able to use external memories as well. A game for NES and SNES namely only takes up a few MB, while a N64 can take up up to 512MB so a little more space wouldn’t hurt if you’re suppose to be able to download these games via the online service.

 

The online services

Sony has said that it will not be making a centralized service like the one Microsoft has, but will let the game developers handle this. Microsoft has on the other hand been working hard with improving its already available service and has presented Live! Silver and Live! Gold. Silver will be a free, with one limitation: no online play. I other than that it will offer a big community where you can chat and handle you profile.

The games will all have a strong connection to Xbox Live! where the developers can set up their own rules and guidelines. They can make themes matching the game, set their own levels for various titles and progress you have done. You will also be able to set your gaming profile so that the same type of games use the same type of settings (e.g. inverted y-axle, automatic gearbox, etc.).

Nintendo has announced that it will offer a wireless online service where you can download old classics and play online. There is no known support from third party game developers so far, but among others SEGA has expressed that it would gladly release it games on the Nintendo online service.If this would actually happen Cinderella can take her wonderful ball and shove it. Considering that SEGA has released its games to GameCube I am almost to excited to think about it. The service will be completely free of charge, but the games will not be. Any prices or even guidelines are not available at the moment. That Nintendo would charge anything more than a symbolic sum for the older games is feeling a bit remote, but yet again we will have to wait and see.

 

Super Tennis

The games

We have seen many screenshots from coming games, especially for Xbox 360, but also for Playstation 3 and what we can conclude is that if you’re able to make use of the high resolution textures you can expect quite an impressive visual effect experience. Playstation 3 has a wide support among the third party developers, even though there have been some complaints about both the complexity and the cost of the developer kits, and at the same time this is one of the areas Microsoft has been working hardest on improving. Exactly where Nintendo is standing is a bit uncertain, but it has expressed the need for third party developers and have been having discussions with these. It seems that things have gone well. They are also bragging about having the console that will be the easiest to work with. To begin with Sony claimed that Playstation 3 would have the same full backwards compatibility as Playstation 2, but this was retracted and that it is working on making the best they can. All and all there are 13 000 titles, a lot of junk of course, but still a quite impressive figure.

Xbox 360 will have a rather selective backwards compatibility. Microsoft has published a list of games that will work with (can be found here) Xbox 360 and it will be updated constantly. The games namely needs a profile that the emulator software, only available on the harddrive, can read and then emulate the game on the Xbox 360 hardware. In other words you will need a harddrive to be able to play the old games. Exactly what support Nintendo will have is a bit uncertain, if we’re talking about a general or selective emulator with profiles similar to the Xbox 360, but the fact is that you will be able to play games from every earlier generation of Nintendo consoles. What the supply will look like remains to see, but to begin it will most likely be quite limited, rumours have stated approximately 200 games

 


Xbox 360: Gears of War

Playstation 3: Devil May Cry 4

 

Coming titles
Xbox 360
Playstation 3
Revolution
  • Battlefield 2: Modern Combat
  • Burnout Revenge
  • Call of Duty 3
  • Dead or Alive 4
  • Dead Rising
  • Fable 2
  • Final Fantasy XI
  • Football Manager 2006
  • Forza Motorsport 2
  • Gears of war
  • Gun
  • Halo 3
  • Mutant Storm
  • Need for Speed Most Wanted
  • Prefect Dark Zero
  • Project Gotham Racing 3
  • Quake 4
  • Resident Evil 5
  • Ridge Racer 6
  • Soul Calibur 4
  • Test Drive Unlimited
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
  • Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
  • Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 4
  • and more

  • Devil May Cry 4
  • Endless Saga
  • Final Fantasy VII: AC
  • Final Fantasy XII
  • Heavenly Sword
  • Killing day
  • Metal Gear Solid 4
  • Motorstorm
  • Ni-Oh
  • Phantom Saga 5
  • Quake 4
  • Resident Evil 5
  • Silent Hill 5
  • Tekken 6
  • Vision Gran Turismo
  • War Devil
  • Wild Warhawk
  • and more

  • Animal Crossing
  • Castlevania
  • Donkey Kong Adventures
  • Final Fantasy CC
  • Kid Icarus
  • Killing Day
  • Mario 128
  • Metroid Prime 3
  • Pilotwings
  • Pokemon World
  • Smash Bros, Mario Kart
  • Star Fox: Galaxy
  • The Darkness
  • The Legend Of Zelda
  • Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 4
  • and more

     

    Project Gotham Racing 3
    Xbox 360: Project
    Gotham Racing 3
    Vision Gran Turismo
    Playstation 3: Vision Gran Turismo
     

    Xbox 360 can brag about a lot of guns and cars, but beyond that we start to see that Xbox 360 seems to suffer from the same problem as the old Xbox, the variation ain’ t great, I miss above all a couple of really good RPGs and platform games. Just converting FFXI, which is actually starting to get a bit old, is far from enough. Microsoft has promised that that it will broaden its assortment to reach out to the other markets, especially the Japanese and I hope they can keep that promise. Jade Empire, Fable and Baldur’s gate were three strong titles in the RPG-genre so I’m still got my hopes up.
    Because without more variation it will not be able to threaten Sony and Playstation 3 even if they beat them to it a with a couple of months. Against Sony’s top games they already have strong equivalents, but the assortment in general is a lot more narrow. But tot emphasize it one more time. Microsoft has promised to improve this.

    Playstation 3 has a list of games that doesn’t contain any real surprises, even if Ni-Oh and Heavenly Sword seems really fresh.In general a lot of expected titles all with their own set of fans. Just the new Gran Turismo will cause a riot, more or less. Revolution’s list should be consider with a pinch of salt, however what we ca read from it is that Nintendo has made an honest attempt to broaden with more ”adult” games e.g. FPS such as Killing Day and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 4 are hardly games that you would call kids’ games. The new controller seems to be able to offer a whole new dimension to FPS games. And as it seems to be more then enough power I’m having quite high hopes for Revolution.

     


    Xbox 360: Perfect Dark Zero

    Playstation 3: Tekken 6

     

    The design

    We finish by a completely subjective judgment of the exteriors. Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are basically the same size. Playstation 3 has more of a DVD-player look even though some have been complaining about its rounded design. Waffle iron-look has been mentioned while Xbox 360 has a rather unique deign with a Apple-white, concave look. Playstation 3 looks fairly simple to place on top or right next to the DVD and it seems to blend in fairly well, as long as you get a bit of an above view. Xbox 360 will not blend is good, i haven’t seen any Apple-white DVD-player, amplifiers, receivers, VCR or TVs. However it a lot better than the previous ”eye-twitching-gut-wrenching” design but it is still far from neutral, or even good looking, far from clean at least, which most likely will have a major effect on the Japanese market.
    The glitch you get between the concave design and the unit its stand on won’t be pretty either even though it doesn’t seem to be that much. the choice if color is however the most confusing part, pale white is not common, as I mentioned earlier, and it adds a bit of low quality feeling. The so called face plates which you can buy are suppose to solve this if you don’t like the original design. We will most likely see one or more mods where people redesign their Xbox 360.

    What Revolution will look like in its final appearance remains to see, but from it seems like it will be very neutral and it seems to be able to blend in very well. Perhaps to good. I mean, you do want it to be a little eye catching.

     

     

    Summation

    We round up with a small table of what we’ve written so far. Not including the design though as it is a highly subjective opinion.

     

     
    Playstation 3
    Xbox 360
    Revolution
    Pros +Assortment of games
    +Blu-ray
    +Harddrive support
    +The outputs
    +Harddrive support
    +Online services
    +The controller
    +Backwards compatibility
    +Simple architecture
    +Online services
    +Price
    +The controller
    Cons -Online services -Cables -DVD-move only via adapter
    -Small storage capacity
    Question marks Backwards compatibility?
    New architecture/SDK?
    Price?
    The controller?
    HD DVD?
    New architecture/SDK?
    Assortment of games?
    Assortment of games?
    The performance?

    Some comments might be suitable here:

    Playstation 3 suffers from a few drawbacks, we don’t know much it will cost, it seems to be more than Xbox 360, but then again you get a Blu-ray player. The controller looks like a silver banana, but it suppose to bring a classic feeling. No centralized online service is just weak, and last we have the choice of central processor; Cell which can cause some problems, due to its complexity. The backwards compatibility is a really big question mark now that they have retracted the earlier statement.

    Xbox 360 has no really big drawbacks, except for perhaps the assortment of games. the we have the price which is a hot topic as Microsoft did launch a console at $300 as promised, but it is far from a complete console. No harddrive which removes a lot a of features such as the backwards compatibility and it won’t have a free online service. I would recommend buying the more expensive version as it contain both a harddrive and a Live!-subscription. All and all neither a pro nor a con, but it feels like a low blow all and all. The HD DVD support is a bit tricky to as Microsoft does support it and adding it to Xbox 360 would really make it more impressive, especially if they add digital video outputs at the same time Decent outputs are available but only through adapters. Very cheap in my humble opinion.
    Then we have the architecture which isn’t as much a question mark as Playstation 3 as it is more of a PC. The assortment of games is a lot narrower than Sony’s and a lot less attractive than Nintendo’s, but as Microsoft so far haven’t lived up to its promises I chose to not set it as a con but a question mark.

    Revolution will be the cheapest, a lot even. I would guess about the same price as GameCube, but a little higher considering the inflation the last four years. To be able to play old classics from all the way back in the early 80’sis a big plus and it goes hand in hand with the online services. The internal memory is only at 512MB but might be upgradeable/exchangeable.
    It would be nice as 512MB is quickly filled using broadband. And then we have the controller. I’ve already written a lot about it but as I myself haven’t had the opportunity to use it myself it’s hard to say all that much about it. it seems very promising though and tends for a completely new gaming experience.
    Since we haven’t seen the official specifications yet the performance will have to be a questionmark.The list of games seemed promising, but I still need to see more.


    What to say about all this then? What should you get? I know I will wait until I’ve seen more. We have today seen very few games being played in real time, but seen loads of pictures and videos. They look almost astonishing, but they really don’t say squat about how much fun I will have with them playing them on a regular 24-32″ TV which most people have. The number of ”new” games aren’t many either, original that is. I see almost exclusively old ideas in new costumes. I’m waiting for that true burst of creativity that really shows what these consoles can do, HD-resolution are nice and all, but yet again, I want to have fun playing and resolution doesn’t mean much then.

     

     
    Playstation 3
    Xbox 360
    Revolution
    Processor Cell
    3.2 GHz 1 PPC-core + 7 SPE
    Xenon
    3.2 GHz 3 cores (2 threads per core)
    Broadway
    2.5GHz 2 cores
    Graphic circuit RSX
    550MHz
    Xenos
    500MHz
    Hollywood 600MHz
    Graphic memory 256MB 700MHz 10MB 2GHz eDRAM 256MB 833MHz
    Resolution 1080p 1080i 480p
    Memory 256MB @ 3.2 GHz XDRAM 512MB 700MHz (shared with graphic circuit) GDDR-3 RAM 512MB 700MHz 1T-SRAM
    Total bandwidth 48GB/s 54.4 GB/s 24.3 GB/s
    Sound 5.1+ 5.1+ 5.1+
    Controllers 7 4 4
    Price $500 (?) 2995/3995 $250 (?)

    Where does this take us then? One big mess that most likely won’t look much different from the last generation. Sony will most likely dominate again, mainly because of its strong brand, but I have high hopes for Nintendo being able to climb back up, while Microsoft can end up pretty much anywhere. In a number of surveys done in Japan the figures are varying, especially between Nintendo and Sony. Microsoft is constantly last, and usually by quite a margin. They are really working uphill but it seems that all the hard work they’ve done with lectures and similar promoting the console has had some effect as the Japanese now actually are a bit interested, as instead for totally ignoring it as they did with the Xbox.

    Xbox 360 will arrive first and it will probably sell very good, especially as it is the first, but then again rumours are passing around about a supply shortage. The question is if it can manage to create such a hype around its console, and broaden its assortment of games and thus ending up going to head to head with Sony worldwide. Where Nintendo will end up in the rest of the world is very hard to predict, but it has awaken many strong feelings with its unique controller. The reactions we’ve seen in our own forum have been very strong and have varied a lot even though they are overall very positive.
    I first though that Nintendo would get a hard time launching its console last, even tough it now seems they may beat Sony to it, if they don’t get more adult games, but if the list of games are even remotely true I think they may have something here.

    The aces are the games though: Gran Turismo, Mario 128, Halo 3 to mention a few. I can’t say even a percentage of all the games I’ve seen so far has awoken any stronger feelings even if they have looked very impressive, but then again we are all interested in different things so to be honest you should pretty much ignore every thing I’ve said so far and go for the gut feeling. Buy with your heart and you will be happy.

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