xbox, playstation, or wii?, which? Options

[Hocus Pocus]

i think i might buy a console system by the end of the year, i'm trying to decide which one i should go with. Xbox seems to be more shoot'em up games and sports games. I love rpg and stragety which i dont' know if the playstation will keep it's dominace in the field. Yeah they got Final Fantasy series, but since the last great one (tactics) I haven't held much confidence (though the new one looks good). WII will be the cheapest, with 2 kids and a nagging wife I"m constantly strapped for cash, and i think it would have more kid friendly games as well.



thoughts?

[Garrowolf]

I'm going to get the wii because I like the controllers. I've been wanting those kind of controllers for years now. Plus it's alot cheaper thn the others.

Second choice is the PS3. I just can't EVER afford it.

[Firewall]

Wii first, then I might buy a 360. There is nothing about the PS3 that excites me, nothing that won't have a release on the other consoles. I never got into Final Fantasy, I was too busy playing Zelda. My wife likes the Suikoden games but I can grab her a PS2 to play those on. Well, a PS1 if I am honest; she prefers the older ones to the newer ones.

I played the 360, though I don't like its emphasis on FPS games. If I want an FPS, I will buy it for my PC.

[eidolon]

PC.

Best, console, ever. ;)

[Moon-Hawk]

I already have a great PC, an XBox, and a Gamecube. (just for background)
I have a Wii on reserve. They seem to be more focused on innovation and gameplay, rather than OMFG-GRAFFIX!!!!1
I plan to buy a 360 when they get a larger game base, and I might pick up an old PS2 when they're super-cheap, 'cause they do have some good titles.
A PS3 would pretty much have to fall on me. I don't plan on buying one, ever.

[Zolhex]

Wii to start with till say 3 or 4 years from now when the PS3 is finally reasonablely priced. till then I'll stay with my PC and PS2 and yes Hocus Pocus I do like FF12

[2bit]

Chances are you won't be able to get a PS3 this year anyway, just considering their ridiculous shortage. 360 and Wii you'll have no problem getting ahold of.

360 will have good rpg and strategy titles, but is really a "boy's club" system just like the xbox was. Depending on your home situation, that could be disruptive.

Wii will have a lot more family friendly games, and will have more of a "toy" feel to it. It's also the only system of the three that doesn't feature a DVD player, if that makes any difference to you.

[PBTHHHHT]

boy's club?! whatever do you mean? I mean, sure they had that DOA volleyball game... :wink:

[Hocus Pocus]

what's the deal with the controlers of wii?

wii has no dvd player?, been using my PS2 as the dvd player ever since our dvd/vhs one gave up the ghost



PC-i really want to be able to play with my older kid. My wife used to play games while we were going out. I want to try to get her interested (if she ever was to begin with or was just faking) and have something else we enjoy doing together. And the only thing I'ved noticed that i might need to use a PC is online games which I've realised monopolized my time away from the family


overall if i can get a system with alot of kid and family games first, and then my favorites of stragety and rpg along with the cheapest I"d be happy



Final fantasy- never got into it?!?! then you must not have played 1,2,3(the best) i highly reccomend it, then you'll know what a video game masterpiece is yes indeedy!
(oh celes my darling I'm here for you!)

[Kagetenshi]

For what it's worth, I'm probably going with a PS3. Amazing first-party titles, backwards compatibility, potential for seven simultaneous players on a single console, and the fact that Team Silent is almost certainly making SH5 for it makes it compelling, and the news that it will apparently be highly general-purpose with a Linux base just barely makes the (extremely high) price swallowable.

~J

[Zolhex]

[Hocus Pocus]

1,2,3(the best)



*disclaimer...US versions*




:P


played my final fantasy VI soundtrack today while I was cleaning up the house. Pluperfect masterpiece.

[Kagetenshi]

I've been kinda down on pluperfect music lately. Give me a good future perfect album any day.

~J

[Hocus Pocus]

:P



saw my first wii commercial today. kid was playing a ww2 game and pretending to shoot and punch and the controls responded and the game emulated what he did. Hmm i dunno about that...

[Hocus Pocus]

read some stories of people camping for the consoles.

[hyzmarca]

Wii, from the reviews I've seen it delivers what it was created to deliever, a new type of gaming experince for both hardcore and casual gamers alike.

The Playstation 3 is tempting, but not until they've worked the bugs out. The PS1and PS2 emulators don't work right, potentially rendering hundreds of popular games unplayable.

[Kagetenshi]

Report is that about two hundred games don't work correctly, where "don't work correctly" ranges between "totally unplayable" to "cutscenes don't play sound" (which varies widely in importance by game) to "background music sometimes doesn't play" (which, granted, again can be very important for some games).

As for which games they are, some of them are popular. Most of the ones I've seen, though, I've never heard of, and a decent chunk I'm pretty certain aren't even available outside Japan. If you go for importing, though, that'd be an issue (but your first issue would be, if living outside Japan, getting a Japanese PS3—while PS3 games aren't region-locked, the console apparently obeys the region-locking on PS2 and PS1 titles.), but most people shouldn't be bothered much.

Most of the big-name problems stem from the fact that there's no emulation of the PS2 hard drive. That one's a showstopper for several big games, FFXI most notably.

~J

[hyzmarca]

One of the big problems (I dare say the biggest) is that the emulator isn't really an emulator, it is an interpreter. This is true for all of emulators for all of the later generation consoles simply because emulating advanced graphics hardware is so processor intensive that it isn't feasible on any modern computers. Instead, the "emulators" are programed to interpret the game software and run it on the hardware that is present.

Sony uses their own SDKs as the basis for their interpreter and this is the most obvious solution. The only problem is that many games use nonstandard techniques in order to get the most out of the available hardware. While they would work fine on perfect hardware emulation, one must program the interpreter to recognize those programing techniques.

Because of this, they have to implement customs fixes for every nonstandard programing technique and this takes time.

[Kagetenshi]

The PS2 hard drive would have to be emulated, as unless I remember very poorly indeed, the PS2 didn't handle multiple partitions on its hard drives and the PS3 needs its own chunk of the hard drive.

As for PS2 support, it's handled with an entire hardware PS2 (actually, I think calls to video hardware are interpreted). It's not emulated, but there's no interpretation going on there either.

Short answer: apart from the hard drive issue, most major issues are due to developers doing things they shouldn't have been doing. Most developers that are willing to do things they shouldn't be are smaller outfits, hence most games that have trouble are not what you might call "widely known".

~J

[BlueRondo]

At this point, I don't have much interest in any of the new consoles, but I must give kudos to Nintendo for actually making some innovative hardware. None of the games using the technology really interest me right now, but I think it definitely has potential. I hope someone figures out a way to make a game with fun swordplay (Red Steel, from what I hear, failed to deliver in that regard.)

[Kagetenshi]

"Innovative" is debatable. It's an idea that's been done before a number of times, Nintendo just is doing it when it's actually feasible (or at least that's what it looks like).

No one used a remote-control interface for the motion-sensing before, granted.

~J

[eidolon]

A man in Minnesota was shot and robbed walking out of a Wal-Mart with his new PS3. Fucking. Ridiculous.

I mean, fuck. Where are our damn priorities and how fucked up are our perspectives when we FUCKING SHOOT PEOPLE OVER A DAMN VIDEO GAME MACHINE?????

Disgusting.

[clegrady]

There were also three similar incidents in WI, KT, and CT.

[Fortune]

Is it bad to say that I am not in the least surprised?

[hyzmarca]