What excites you about nextgen gaming consoles?

August 8, 2005 6:08 PM

What features of Xbox 360, PS3, or Nintendo Revolution are you most looking forward to? What are the most unique features?
posted by ArcAm to technology (26 comments total)

im hoping they have some great games that i will want to play for more than a weekend.
posted by threeze at 6:09 PM on August 8, 2005

Is this marketing research?
posted by Who_Am_I at 6:30 PM on August 8, 2005

I'm looking forward to using the 360 controller on my pc. Seriously, it's a nice USB controller. Also that everyone gets heads out of asses regarding single console multiplayer games. I want to play things with my wife, and there's not too many ps2/ xbox games we enjoy.
posted by boo_radley at 6:31 PM on August 8, 2005

nope, nothing nefarious about this. i'm just curious. i haven't owned a video game system since NES, but loosely follow the gaming world. I'm just trying to learn things.
posted by ArcAm at 6:38 PM on August 8, 2005

As a mostly-PC gamer, the crumby image resolution of consoles really bothers me (especially in FPS games - you spend so much time firing at a small blob the size of two pixels, and only get to see what it was when you're up much closer after it's dead), so the greater emphasis on HiDef support will be good. Of course, I don't have a HiDef display yet, but that might have to change :)

I don't know how game companies are going to deal with hi-def though - it means either the normal TV screens will be fewer polys/passes than the console is capible of, or the hi-def screens will have lower draw detail than the TV screen but at higher resolution.

Also, with FPS games and the hi-def option, consoles will have the same problem as PCs - you have to fork out cash for the best gear or you'll get owned by someone who can see twice the details you can :-/
posted by -harlequin- at 6:45 PM on August 8, 2005

I'm torn. I'm really afraid that the 360 will be this generation's equivalent of the Dreamcast, and the backwards compatibility of the PS3 will allow me to play PS2 games that I missed by getting an XBox instead (Katamari Damancy!!). Sooooo....

I'll be getting a Revolution, dammit, because, y'know, Mario, Metroid, Zelda. Dammit.
posted by WolfDaddy at 6:50 PM on August 8, 2005

I'll buy the Revolution if Nintendo fulfills its promise of full backwards compatibility. I'd love to be able to play old school NES games and N64 games and GameCube games on one system.
posted by AgentRocket at 6:50 PM on August 8, 2005

i can tell you that i couldn't really care less about HDTV compatibility or online features of any next-gen console, but rather just the games. the fact that ken kutaragi is basically saying outright that the PS3 will be exorbitantly expensive isn't encouraging at all. depending on how their mysterious controller hoo-hah turns out, i'll probably be throwing my support behind nintendo, since they're usually quite reliable.
posted by jimmy at 6:51 PM on August 8, 2005

If I get any of them it'll be the 360. I have an XBox and a (small) collection of games already.
posted by danb at 6:52 PM on August 8, 2005

Also, to AgentRocket: I'm pretty sure you won't be able to play NES and N64 games, as that would require three different types of hardware. I believe you'll be able to play GameCube games, though.
posted by danb at 6:56 PM on August 8, 2005

Also, to AgentRocket: I'm pretty sure you won't be able to play NES and N64 games, as that would require three different types of hardware.

they will be emulated. nintendo claims that you'll be able to download a majority of their past titles through the revolution's online service.
posted by jimmy at 6:57 PM on August 8, 2005

Shows how much I keep up on things. Thanks for the info.
posted by danb at 6:59 PM on August 8, 2005

they will be emulated. nintendo claims that you'll be able to download a majority of their past titles through the revolution's online service.
posted by jimmy at 6:57 PM PST on August 8 [!]

Wow...I'm impressed with that! Cool idea.
posted by jikel_morten at 7:11 PM on August 8, 2005

I'll definitely be getting a Revolution when it comes out, basically just to give my kids a sense of _history_. They already love playing the old Mario games on the GameBoy as much as any of the 64/GC versions, so just being able to play the classics on a big TV screen'll be a big bonus.
posted by LairBob at 7:39 PM on August 8, 2005

Being a complete sucker for marketing video game fan, I'll probably end up with all three of them eventually. Oddly enough, there isn't one particular feature I'm looking forward to (well, maybe wireless controllers coming standard), just the "more, better" aspect.

One thing I don't understand is why they didn't incorporate DVD burning capability or a Tivo-like functioning. Seems to me that that feature would be the one that would sell units to the non-gaming set, similar to the way the PS2 took off in large part because of its DVD playing capability at a time when not many households had DVD players (or second ones).
posted by MegoSteve at 8:06 PM on August 8, 2005

I should also point out for danb that the Xbox 360's backwards compatibility will be limited to "best-selling games." According to this article, Microsoft hasn't even released a list of what will and won't work.
posted by MegoSteve at 8:13 PM on August 8, 2005

I'd actually echo what Jimmy said, and I think I've been misunderstood - HDTV features are about the only ones I can think of, and even those I'm not too concerned about - features just aren't very relevant next to games. Ie you may be asking the wrong question.
Xbox Live is a very big gameplay reason to get an xbox, if picking from the current crop, but I would expect all the next-gen consoles will have something at least that good by the time they come out. From my perspective, every one of them will have more than sufficient features to make a great console, so features aren't all that useful basis for making buying decisions on.

I think the playstation will have optional HDD (not sure, but I'm just using this as an example), which would be a big stroke against it. A HDD only fully enables developers if they can count on it being there. Apply that to all other features - if a feature doesn't come standard, it doesn't count, because the game developers almost always have to optimise the game experience for the out-of-the-box console. The flipside of course is high retail price on a console where everything is standard.

And again, features might not be the best point of focus.
posted by -harlequin- at 8:24 PM on August 8, 2005

HDTV is the only thing to look forward to. The only other reason to buy a new console is that so you can continue getting new games, since they will stop developing new content for the old systems (in that sense it's a form of extortion).
posted by Hildago at 8:37 PM on August 8, 2005

I must admit that I'm somewhat of a Nintendo fangirl, but there's two things I'm looking forward to — the Revolution's shrouded controller design (considering Nintendo's emulation plans all the way back to the NES, this should be pretty innovative), and the way games are intended to be distributed for the Revolution, though there's not a lot of talk about it right now.

The cute-yet-annoying size of Gamecube discs and the Revolution's slot-loading drive has me puzzled as to what medium will be used in this next generation. However, I wouldn't be surprised, given the company's push toward Wi-Fi, if that wasn't somehow combined with the store packaging.
posted by Hot Like Your 12V Wire at 10:56 PM on August 8, 2005

Nintendo for every Zelda game ever made. And also because my S.O. will get the others anyway, so I don't have to worry about them.
posted by stoneegg21 at 11:22 PM on August 8, 2005

LairBob-

Get the Gameboy attachment thingie for the GC --- you can play any of the GBA (or compatible) cartridges on your TV then (using the GC controllers).

Works pretty well, although things like Minish Cup look better on a smaller screen (to blurry looking blown up).

As far as the original question goes .. i hadn't heard about some of the proposed features in the next nintendo system, but the ability to play older games...great! I went to some lengths to get some of the compilation disks they've put out for GC (i.e. all the NES Zelda games or Ocarina in two different versions). but if I could just download any of them. :)
posted by R343L at 1:33 AM on August 9, 2005

I'm not terribly interested in the Revolution's backwards compatibility, as I have a modded Xbox that lets me play the complete library of NES/SNES/GB/GBA/etc games already. If Nintendo wants to sell me on their console, they'll have to do it with new material.

I'm mostly looking forward to the Xbox360's online ability. Xbox Live really was a big step forward in online console gaming, and it looks like they're making it an integral part of the 360, with the 'free play on weekends' stuff.

I haven't seen anything about the PS3 that interests me, even a little. The best PS3 demo footage released so far was shown to be rendered at 5fps, and then sped up to 30fps in post-production.

I'm personally of the opinion Sony only lucked into the gaming market by screwing over Nintendo for hardware (does anyone else remember the industry reports of the SNES CD-Rom drive Sony was developing, called the PlayStation) and developers (FF7 was arguably the most important game for the PS's success), and I don't think they're going to be able to leverage their current market share into a console that can compete with Microsoft's console plan -- especially considering that Microsoft's console plan is to kick the shit out of Sony, at any cost.
posted by Jairus at 5:37 AM on August 9, 2005

As a fan of original concepts, multiplayer console games and kart racing, I'm pretty sure I'll get a Revolution eventually, unless the controller turns out to be really, really stupid. That said, though, I'm kind of preparing to be disappointed with the emulation aspect of it, among other reasons because Nintendo hasn't said much about third-party games (besides, as Jairus notes, it's not exactly difficult to play legacy Nintendo games these days).

I probably won't get a 360 because I don't like FPSs or RPGs, and because I've already got a PC connected to my TV. I'll probably get a PS3 someday, but I almost certainly won't get one at launch. And there's a non-zero chance that I'll pass on the 360 and the PS3 entirely.
posted by box at 6:21 AM on August 9, 2005

I'm glad there are a lot of Revolution fans here. I'm a huge fan of the Nintendo branded games (Super Smash, Mario Kart, Golf) and will buy the Revolution if only for online Super Smash. I'll probably get the XBOX360 because Halo is the cool game to play and my progressive scan DVD player crapped out on me.

Unless PS3 has some killer titles I won't buy it. There's no real compelling reason to get a PS3 unless you have just an amazing PS2 catalog. I don't recall PS2 having any "killer apps" beyond DVD support, as I have all three and it is the one that sees the least play.
posted by geoff. at 8:31 AM on August 9, 2005

A fast enough CPU to emulate the old systems and play newer extremely CPU intensive video formats, like high definition h.264 (even regular h.264 would be nice)...

Oh... you mean what they *intend* for people to do with the systems. Bah, screw that...
posted by shepd at 10:01 AM on August 9, 2005

Depending on how backward compatible the Xbox360 is, I might get it. I have a PS2 now, and the backward compatibility is very important, I'd like to be able to play cheap used Xbox games, otherwise, I'll just hold off for another year or two, it's not like the PS2 is running out of games.
posted by patrickje at 11:01 AM on August 9, 2005