X-Box & PS2

I have an XBOX and NGC. Gonna sell the cube as i never use it. I play on XBOX everyday.

I'm a 23 year old student, which by all accounts is the main target audience of XBOX. Go figure :)
 
So milanlad, after reading all the above which one have you decided to go for? Come on, don't keep us in suspense :)
 
I'm not denying that the X-Box is a decent console and can do loads of wonderful things but I just want my console to be a simple "stick a game in and play thing". I have a Decent PC for doing most other things and an arcade cabinet that runs mame. If I had an X-Box all I would do is play X-Box games on it and my fave game is Pro Evo 3 so that's why i have a PS2. I hardly have time to play all the games I want on PS2 so to buy an X-Box for me personally would just be pointless. The graphics on PS2 are decent enough, but the reason I love Pro Evo 3 isn't for the graphics anyway. Should I want Ultra high resolution, quality graphics I just load up a game on the PC. Personally the Day that hardware finally gets standardised, in my book will be a fantastic day. I think the advances in PC technology would keep console technology advancing (the X-Box is just old, although modified PC architecture anyway) so the lack of competition shouldn't cause hardware development to slow. The hardware is rather unimportant to me, it's the games that matter and i'll buy whatever box i need to play the games i want - not because it's got better sound or graphics.
 
Originally posted by gthom3
I'm not denying that the X-Box is a decent console and can do loads of wonderful things but I just want my console to be a simple "stick a game in and play thing".

That sounds like an XBox to me. If anything, game load times are faster on the XBox due to the additional memory and hard drive.

Some people put down the XBox saying that it's just a PC. Frankly, I don't care if my washing machine is just a PC inside, as long as it washes clothes properly. The XBox may have PC guts, but it's definitely a console.
 
Definitely feel the Xbox is only just now hitting its stride: many excellent games have come out for it in the past few months. Its beginning to take on that sheen of a classic console I feel.
 
I didn't want to get an XBOX originally as i presumed it was just a pc in console shape.

There is no front-end os that you have to playaround with. You just turn it in, stick in a game thats it.

Same as any other console except the graphics are better, the games load faster, its got the best online service of any console, more mature games and IMO the best control pad.
 
That wasn't really the point of the message. I don't deny that the X-Box is good regarding "just sticking a game on". The point is that when I can play pro evo and Gran Turismo on the X-Box i'll buy one. I like PGR2 and a few other X-Box titles but none as much as the two PS2 games mentioned. As i've said before the box you play your games on is irrelevant, it's the games you play that matter. They virtually give games hardware away these days, I mean with the current x-box packages where you get 4 games for £139, the console is virtually free. Believe me i'm not denying that the X-Box is a technically better machine, but that means diddly squat if it doesn't play the games i want.

To conclude there is no console war as hardware simply doesn't matter these days. The answer is very simple...just buy whichever box plays the game(s) you want to play. Use a PC for MP3, emulation software, digital editing/photography etc if you have one as they are better for that kind of thing. If you don't then an X-Box may be a cheap alternative for people who don't want to buy a computer.
 
Originally posted by gthom3
The answer is very simple...just buy whichever box plays the game(s) you want to play. Use a PC for MP3, emulation software, digital editing/photography etc if you have one as they are better for that kind of thing. If you don't then an X-Box may be a cheap alternative for people who don't want to buy a computer.

better? well pc's may be better for psx/n64 and mame emulation, but not for the rest. Dont forget that you get one of the best controllers with the xbox AND you get rgb/progressive hi-def video output. If you want to play emulated games on your tv via a pc it has what? s-video at best?

i have both - check my sig, and the xbox is far better for emulation. It is also better for all video formats except dvd - my xbox will play disks that my pc can't - so the pc loses again.......
 
The PC I use to emulate games (mainly MAME) is inside a Jamma Cab outputting through an arcade monitor. The games can be played with real arcade controls as well. For arcade emulation you can't beat this setup - a tv and console controller is poor in comparison. Emulating Consoles may be different but I find many console games play great on the cab (not only can i run emulations but I have built PS2 and Megadrive to JAMMA harnesses).

The simple glaring fact remains that - you buy a console that runs the games you wish to play. I have no devine loyalty to Sony (infact i'm a big Sega fan sad at the demise of the fantastic Dreamcast) and will switch platforms in a flash if one suddenly has a higher proportion of games I wish to play. At the moment, for me, the PS2 is easily the best platform, not because it has the best graphics or sound, but simply because it plays my fave games.

Arguing over which is the best computer/console is something I used to do 20 + years ago in the playground when I owned a Spectrum and my mate had a C64.
 
I have a Xbox and Gamecube. I really like both. XBOX is definitely more of an experience (graphics and sound) and now has more games I want than I can afford...which has been a while in coming. Was quite disappointing during the first year...that's why I bought a GC.

Gamecube has some wonderful games and you can get some incredible packages. It's cheaper than a GBA!!! Some people may be put off because alot of the games look a bit childish but to say that would be missing the point. I play games for a bit of fun and escapism. I don't want to escape city life by "popping a cap in yo ass" I can do that in a number of areas of London. Games on the GC generally have excellent gameplay...Pikmin, Mario double dash, Wind Waker, SMS etc

For me the PS2 doesn't do it. I loved my PS1 but the PS2 didn't offer anything really different. I played Gran Turismo to bits on my PS1 and Gran Turismo 2 & 3 aren't that much different it's just been fiddled with. Also, IMO having to buy a multitap to have more than two players and having to spend more money on memory cards stinks. I was impressed by the Eye Toy, but it's only really a novelty.
 
The thing that gets me is having to buy 3 different systems to play all of the games that you want to play. This isn't really a cost issue as the console packages available are very cheap. The issue is that it's another 3 things to be integrated into your AV setup. Most of us with have a DVD, VCR, set top box(sky/cable) and possibly an extra amplifier. To have 3 games consoles connected as well is a nightmare and to be honest they all have to be connected at once or it becomes a right pain swapping over connections. I've always felt that the hardware should be secondary and the market competition should be with the games themselves. This doesn't mean that Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft can't still make the consoles - just that they will run standard compatible hardware and your choice of box will then come down to how well it is phisically designed. The gaming market is the only one where this doesn't happen (with the current exception of recordable DVD where the winning format has yet to be settled upon). Sky - standard set top box, DVD - standard format, VCR - standard format (although there were obviosly 3 initial formats Betamax, VHS and V2000). I guess there is a hardware difference regarding Sky vs Cable but this is slightly different as they are different delivery methods.

Video gaming has come on massivly since the late 70's / early 80's and is now a major home entertainment format, and games consoles are no longer just classed as toys. I think the next big step for the industry is to move to a standard format as it's not really economically viable to run cometing systems in my view. Just think how many more titles of Say Zelda the wind waker or metroid prime that Nintendo would have sold they were not only available to people that owned a game cube!

This whole issue has been a bugbear for me since my first computer (the Dragon32) which was a great machine in it's day. Unfortunatelly it wasn't as successful as other formats and I was eventually 'forced' to buy another more popular machine. Then the machine I bought was the Spectrum +3! Back then the waring formats were the Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad CPC. We move on almost 20 years and on it's launch day I became the proud owner of a Sega Dreamcast! Here I had a great machine with some fantastic games (Soul Calibur, Power Stone, MSR, Virtua Tennis, Shemnue etc) but as we all know the console died a death as the Marketing machine that is 'Playstation2' hit the market. So again if I wanted to play current games I had to change formats and begrudgingly bought a PS2. Now the same multiformat battles are still going on with PS2, X-Box and GC, 20 years after the Sectrum, C64 and CPC hit the market.

For the good of gaming in general I hope the industry leaders (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and although no longer in the hardware market Sega) can get together with other leading hardware producers (Nvidia, ATI, Intel, AMD, Creative, maybe even Pace) to produce a cracking single format games machine!
 
Originally posted by gthom3
For the good of gaming in general I hope the industry leaders (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and although no longer in the hardware market Sega) can get together with other leading hardware producers (Nvidia, ATI, Intel, AMD, Creative, maybe even Pace) to produce a cracking single format games machine!

The market has produced a single format games machine.

It's called the PC.

And the cost of the PC should tell you why a single format for games consoles would probably not work. Without a single 'owner' of the format, there is no way for the hardware cost to be subsidised by software sales.

There have been other threads on this subject before.

A single format has been tried in the past. The MSX was a standard platform for 8 bit home computers. Although it did reasonably well in Japan, it didn't really do very well in the west.
 
I disagree..the PC has become a single format in one respect but it is also a competing format with consoles. Also the reason that console games cost more is due to the fact that they must subsidise the console sales, where as PC games do not and they generally retail from around £5 to £10 cheaper per title (obviously comparing similar titles. As I have around 30-40 PS2 games you are looking at around £250 - £400 extra that has been paid for these games - really due to hardware subsidy. As my PS2 cost £170 when I bought it I have in effect paid around £500 for the console if you considere the subsidy.

You also say that PC's are expensive - this is due however to a number of factors : a) the Monitor b) extra disc drives cd/dvd drives c) extra sound systems (consoles use existing AV or TV sound). You can get a PC tower with a lot more power than an X-Box for around £200 so I don't think they are expensive for what they are and a console wouldn't need half of the components that a PC does.

Further to this - if the producers of the system (say Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) all produce games ,like they do, then subsidy if still possible through their games sales. The hardware being standard doesn't affect this.

Personally I would also be willing to pay £400 for a single format system as to buy all three systems at the moment would cost you around that and if you bought them at their launch days they would have cost double that amount

I think it's the only way to go and it just needs some more radical thinking by the people at the top to make this happen. The major companies need to refocus their business towards the games and the hardware should not have the 'imortance' in the market that it does. To compare a massive industry altering move such as this by all of the main players in the market to the MSX isn't really a fair comparison. For this to work it needs to become an industry standard with all of the major players involved.
 

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