The rumble feature missing from the original PS3 controller was actually a big issue. So much so that Sony went back on their original idea and redesigned the controller. Other than the bundled games, I did not buy a single PS3 game until they released the new controller. Without the rumble feature, playing games just felt lifeless. Now, if you had told me this before I bought the PS3 I would have said you were mad and would have asked 'how much difference would it make really?'. In fact it made a lot of difference. The 'last gen' of consoles was perfect for me as they all complimented each other and offered something different from each other. The PS3 had Blu-ray, the 360 had a great controller and good games, the Wii had the fun factor and I was able to play games with people who would not normally play them - it was a social hit. Owning a decent PC and all three of these consoles did not cause too much overlap as I used them all for different things and in different situations. Now, for the next gen of consoles the manufacturers need to come up with some differentiating factor for each of their machines and give me a reason to own all of them. The WiiU is first out of the blocks and although is not exactly next gen in its specifications, it does offer something I am interested in (the tablet controller). If the PS4 and Xbox 720 are simply the same thing but stuffed with better components then I am not going to jump in so readily. MS seem to be playing with their new 'arm attachment' motion controller which looks quite interesting (although I am not yet sold on it), but I have not seen anything from Sony as yet that is going to 'change the game' as it were.
I think we can safely say your memory is faulty. Let's take a trip down memory lane and look at Arstechnica's 2006 review of the PS3. It contains a single phrase about the lack of rumble: "The lack of rumble didn't bother me much once I started playing". Their conclusion mentions it in about 3 words, and then simply lists all the other flaws that were present at the time, and were way more serious, such as the awful store, terrible browser, broken HD scaler, high price... Arguably, there was a vocal minority on the internet bitching about the SIXAXIS, but that always happens. So no, the lack of rumble was not the "main complaint", it was a tiny issue in a large pot of much bigger problems. People started buying the PS3 once it actually got good games, the software was fixed and the price dropped. We can argue about the fact that Sony should have put rumble in from day one, but that's not the problem here. Possible, but I'd say it wasn't a redefinition of 3D gaming, but a natural evolution. We already had 3D games, the only difference was sticking a new stick on the controller and allowing easier camera rotation. Tracking cameras, and even free-moving cameras, had been done before, just not quite so tightly integrated. Don't get me wrong, Nintendo pulled a smart move by building the analogue stick in to the N64, but I think you'd struggle to claim that was the moment 3D gaming came of age. Yes, you sound like a total fanboy because, frankly, you're overstating Nintendo's achievements. The Wii sold in vast numbers, but if you drill down to the statistics, most people only ever purchased Wii Sports in the box, and maybe Wii Fit. Third party sales were terrible, the games were terrible and the whole thing was a gimmick based around the controller. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are all flailing around trying to come up with the next big thing in gaming (Kinect, Move, Wii/WiiU), and none of it is successful in terms of actual use (sales figures are irrelevant as they are heavily influenced by marketing). The Gamecube was Nintendo's last good home console. Simple as that. EDIT: So, where's the big jump in sales when Sony released the DualShock3 in July 2007? As for the PlayStation 4? I think most of the rumours are going to turn out to be nonsense. Integrated GPU doesn't make sense (the WiiU is still discrete, just combined in to a single package), but lots of threads does for Sony if they're going to have any similarity between the PS3 to try and avoid all the developers having to re-learn their coding (8 core Bulldozer vs 7 SPEs in the Cell). I'd expect around 4GB of RAM, a modern low-ish end GPU and a decent CPU.
I think it is true to say that Nintendo need to make sure they vet the quality of releases for the WiiU - some of the Wii games were awful. However, some of them were genius too.
I cannot agree more with you. Yes yes... Ars is the master word of all. Doesn't mean that the reviewer didn't miss it, that it applies to everyone. Ars opinions in a lot of things are so wrong. But that's ok. It's their opinion. I read Ars daily. Very cool and interesting site. I have their RSS feed, and comment there. But their opinions, not so great. Yes, and that is exactly why Sony IMMEDIATELY gave up their law suit case against Immersion, made a settlement which is was a really poor deal for Sony, and rush delivery of the rumble feature. It was so rushed, that they didn't include it on the console until MUCH later. Hence why the sales of the PS3 didn't go up.. as now people saw the DualShock controller as an ANOTHER cost to add: Super pricey console + overpriced HDMI cable + remote for Blu-ray + replacement controller + another controller for at least 2 player + at least 1 or games to get started... WOW. Pricey console. Now it's all been rectified with the PS3 slim. And I very happy for Sony to get everything sorted out. It would be a serious shame to lose a strong competitor. Everything is an evolution of something to some extent. The question is who gets the idea first, and implement it first, in a way that was not thought about. I am sure that if Nintendo was not there, that someone else would have figured it out. That's for sure for everything in life. We are so many on the planet, someone is bound to have the same idea, and solution at some point. You are completely understating Nintendo like no tomorrow. Oh wait there is no tomorrow.. today is the last day! Fine you get a pass THIS time. Seriously though, I know I am pushing a lot Nintendo, but it's to balance things out. I always try to balance the conversation. Lucky Nintendo didn't lose money on the console, else they would have been out of business. That is why losing money on a console is very risky, and Nintendo first attempt at this... is with the WiiU. Although, Nintendo makes up the money by having a person buy 1-2 games (depending on it's pricing). Maybe that is why the WiiU basic doesn't come with a game. The sales of non-Nintendo games were terrible as the game developers didn't see the potential of the console. They always keep thinking that moving the controllers should be like button presses. Even the PS3 Move is guilty of this. This made the Wii third party games have poor sales, and Nintendo games completely over shadowed third party games in consequences. This made publishers not happy at all, and decided to not really support the Wii. The controller was too unique. However, now some developers are getting the hang of it. Check out Call of Dutty Black Ops II on the WiiU with Wii motion controls (yes it support that). Its' crazy! It's better than Metroid Prime 3, as it takes advantage of the Motion plus feature. It's the next best thing to the mouse, and some can argue that it's even better. As you point and shoot, yet still can navigation and move as you want. Tracking is excellent, and the game has super long list of configuration option to adjust things to your liking, and has several presets done for you. No they are not. And that's the problem. Nintendo always does this. This is what Nintendo does all the time. Use existent and proven technology, to create something unique that is targeted in providing a new experience to the gaming world. It always tries to be different. Microsoft and Sony, both tries to copy Nintendo every single time. Which I don't understand AT ALL why they are doing this? They already have everything to differentiate themselves, they have their market. The problem with Microsoft and Sony trying to copy Nintendo and why, I think they fail, is not because of inferior technology (PS3 move is superior to the Wii, Kinect is different), it's because Nintendo, what many people calls gimmicks, are part of the core of the console. So it's not not a gimmick. Microsoft and Sony are add-ons. So developers needs to spend a lot more time, and money to support these new controllers or wtv, for a tinny market within a specif console. So they don't care, it's not worth it. They just make the game to play properly with the controller setup that everyone has, so that you have more sales, than if you do a game exclusively for Kinect or PS3 move. To me, an add-on to a toy (gaming console) is a gimmick. But when it's part of the console, its automatically not a gimmick. Now it could be poorly applied, but that's a different story. While I agree with you, it sold abysmally. And that was Nintendo releasing a powerful console. It was more powerful than the PS2. It was not included in the PS3. You had to purchase it separately. And it was not a 5-10$ thing. I agree with you.
It was included with ps3 since it was released. I have had 2 ps3 consoles the orginal and the slim model The slim model included duel axis rumble controller. the orginal did not, personally prefer the orginal controller its lighter and more user friendly in extended gaming periods. PS3 sales where poor due to a crazy price point in the uk £425 without a game and a poor launch lineup. Once uncharted and its Ilk saw release the sales picked up. Lack of a rumble controller makes so little difference to playing a game. Both the 360 and PS3 struggled for 3 years to make headway into a dominant Nintendo Wii market. They had sold Double going on tripple the number of ps3s and 360s and had more sold than both did combined at one point. Nintendo wii was the most popular christmas device of 2006 2007 2008 2009 only in recent years has the sales dropped out on it. Whatever the ps4 or xbox 720 ( whatever its called ) id expect max of 4gb ram some quad core cpu and a discrete gpu 7870 at most. Priced at £399 to £499, Niether will sell well at launch due to lack of a launch line up. What its not going to have is some 3960x cpu and 2 690s in sli. People expecting consoles to push the graphics of pc games higher are living in the cloud. Mobile gaming space is taking over in terms of profits and cost to make a game. Pc is no longer the first platform developed for as far as most publishers go, Football manager 2013 and Anno 2070 would be the last 2 games developed for PC only release. Niether is pushing graphics. Most games released these days are ports of ps3 / 360 games with some increased settings to push the graphics a bit. Id even question if BF3 was primary developed on PC due to the poor performance it gives on most modern hardware whilst still running fine on a 360 or ps3 with a gpu from 7 years ago.
I accept that I only linked one opinion, but I think you're overstating your personal opinion of the rumble feature and the impact it had on purchasing decisions. Yes, Sony realised they had made a mistake and had to scramble to fix it, but it was simple one part of the overall PS3 picture that had to be fixed to generate success. Sales basically stayed on a flat line, even after the DualShock3 was packed in to the box in June 2008. Your point about price is exactly it. People didn't want to spend £425 for the unit, another £10 for a HDMI cable, £49+ on a game full stop. Price is the biggest factor in purchasing decisions, except for a tiny minority of people who get upset over the smallest things. I bought a PS3 on launch, and simply accepted the lack of rumble as something that had to happen - I was happy when it came back though. Oh I know I am, but that's because Nintendo have seemingly lost the plot. To this we agree, else the Wii would have ended Nintendo as a going concern. No way! Sales of third party games were terrible because the games were terrible. Look at the review scores - piles and piles of shovelware aimed at ignorant consumers, who never bought them anyway. It's not that developers don't know how to use the Wii controls (Okami for example was stunning), it's simply that the controls are not suited to certain genres, lack accuracy and give you trapezius muscle strain (no joke). Nintendo's games sell well because of their longstanding IP (Zelda etc), not because they're doing anything drastically different with the controller. They use existing technology to release things that might work...or might not. I know plenty of people with 3DS handhelds who never use the 3D mode, and Wii owners (myself included) who haven't turned the unit on for over a year. MS and Sony make mistakes as well - Move and Kinect - probably because they saw the Wii sales and thought there was something about motion controls they needed to be in on. Their lack of success surely shows that it isn't motion controls that sell hardware, but marketing and a few blockbuster IPs. Meh, semantics. I consider that a whole console can be a gimmick if the entire control mechanism is based around one flawed concept, and it relies upon this difference to stand out from the crowd whilst being substandard in other areas.
That must be a different BF3 from the one I bought then. For me it's simple, most xbox games you can get on PC and the PS3 is also a Bluray player. The PS3/PC combo has provided the best overall balance for me cost wise. I can't see that changing unless something majorly attractive comes to the xbox hardware wise.
1280x704 low (XBOX360, PS3) versus 1920x1080 or 2560x1440 high is a huge difference. Play BF3 on PC with 1280x720 low and enjoy your high FPS...
I find it hard to believe people wouldn't buy a ps3 because of rumble. But otherwise agree with you Goodbytes. Nintendo have become great innovators. Barring how else were 3d games going to go in relevance to the N64... Don't remember that changing much. Although poor ports were a big thing. Probably still are.
Bf3 dif between high and ultra is basically some dx11 effects. Online high wins out offline ultra wins out. Much more difference between low and normal in that game. Gta 4 is the worst port of this generation on release it was the ultimate broken mess the pirate version worked better than the release version due to how badly they tried to stop people pirating it.
The PS3 always was a dual-core PowerPC CPU. Due to yield issues only 6 SPE's were ever available. SPE's were only good for running very specific instruction sets, they are not the same as a quad-core x86 CPU. It is much easier to develop for x86 as the tools are made for the PC. Console games are not developed on a console- they are always ported over, and a dev unit console is used for debugging and optimization. There is no coding to "re-learn" - SPE's are simply stand-alone vector units. GCC compilers will target the SPEs on their own. There isn't any special knowledge required. There's some special code to handle loading and executing the code, but that's all, the only difference is that it's a vector unit, there are no scalar operations.
Err, 7 SPEs are available, with one locked from the factory to improve yield (8 on die). Developers could only use 6 though, as one was reserved for OS functionality. Cell then has one more core, which is the main PPE. So no, I don't really get how you can call it a dual-core? The PS3 was a pig to develop for, which is why the first years were full of sub-par games in performance terms. You can't just take x86 code and magically make it run with ease though - although tools such as Havoc have made things easier recently. http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/06/13/is-the-ps3-really-harder-to-develop-for/ If Sony take the route of an x86 CPU then all their in-house PS3 developers will have to change how they work, as well as any third party teams. If all they've done is make PS3 titles then of course they're going to have to learn new tricks and coding techniques.
will not be even 8GB RAM.. thats for devs who need more to...dev on. with the PS3 getting happily long on 256 MB system and 256 MB video RAM i really dont think they will go over 2GB in the final system.
You cannot look at these as "cores". If you want to be really pedantic, it's a single core, dual-thread PPC64 processor, with additional SPE's that are used for specific tasks only, which is why you would compile for two targets: PPC64 and SPE. SPE's do not do Out-of-order execution, branch prediction or caches. The "8 cores" was, and always will be, marketing hype.
Err yes, well aware of that. I only ever mentioned 8 core as a possibility for PS4 if they use AMD Bulldozers. You're the one who called it a dual-core CPU. Never understood why Sony crippled it with 256MB of RAM for system and video RAM either. Should have doubled that, or had a shared pool.
