Microsoft doesn’t believe the Hype

Saturday May 21, 2005 at 12:10 pm | Filed under Gaming

E3 is over, and Sony made a lot of people’s jaw drop with the announcement of the Playstation 3. The video they showed were amazing, and they claimed that the videos were actual game play for everything they showed. So naturally after being so wowed, the people turn back to Microsoft and their newly announced Xbox 360 to ask what they’re going to do about this whole Sony thing. They responded with a detailed report full of benchmarks that measure the PS3 vs. the Xbox 360. Check it out.

I’m not sure I believe benchmarks that aren’t generated by a neutral party, but this report is certainly thorough and shows that the whole thing is skewed the other way, and that the 360 is the machine to beat, power-wise.

Another tidbit that is that Sony seems to be keeping their PS2 stance on online game play. This means that Sony won’t have a subscription based all-in-one overarching Xbox live kinda thing. I’m not so sure about this, as Xbox live sure is cool. The community feel that it brings is great, and the next version looks like it’ll kick that up mucho notches. Some Sony president guy also mentioned, in the same interview that this info came from, that Sony would not be broadband only in their online efforts either. I admire Microsoft for stepping up the requirements in order to deliver a better experience on this one. We’ll see if this info sticks over the coming year.

Finally, there are plenty of rumors about the cost of these beasts. I’ve heard that the Xbox 360 is expected to cost $299 at launch this November, and the PS3 may be as much as $499 when it comes out in the Spring of 2006. Just another thing to consider when making a decision on which to get. I’m still undecided, but there’s a lot of time left to find out more hard facts.

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No Responses to “Microsoft doesn’t believe the Hype”

  1. Jason Says:
    May 21st, 2005 at 12:20 pm

    Call me a weenie, but I got all excited when I read that the Nintendo is gonna offer their entire catalogue from NES to Nintendo-64 for download on the Revolution. The Revolution is probably gonna be pretty cheap too. (no official word on whether or not they’ll charge for said downloads. Please Please Please let it be free.)
    I think I’ll be able to afford those other systems when folks start selling them at garage sales.

  2. Joe Says:
    May 21st, 2005 at 12:52 pm

    Yeah, I haven’t mentioned the Revolution yet, since all they pretty much had at the show was a case for it, and the idea that it would somehow be able to run everything nintendo has ever put out.

    I’ve never been a big fan of Nintendo, at least not enough to buy one of their systems. They seem to fall short on both the hardware and the software side for me. Hardware is always too limiting, the proprietary thing ain’t cool either. The software is too focused on the fun family kid thing. They improved on that a bit with the GameCube, but not enough for me. I like the software library to be a bit more versatile.

    Maybe I’ll pick a revolution up at a garage sale sometime. ;-)

  3. Jason Says:
    May 21st, 2005 at 2:03 pm

    And you’re forgetting….. Cheap!
    Yeah, I hear what you’re saying though. But price + Zelda franchise = happy Gihrings.