To start things off, this is opinion of course, so no one be like "NO UR WRONGZ" or anything and I'll attempt not to do the same. I also am somewhat a PS3 fanboy. I really want one because of all the new features and crap and I simply have been unimpressed with most games on 360 EVEN THOUGH I am hoping to play Mass Effect, Halo 3 (hype for me is kinda dying for H3).

Anyways I have these in no specific order, they are just being written as I think of them.

GTA 4:
I think it will be amazing. I just played through GTA 3 not too long ago and I forgot how fun it was. Anyways. About the 360 exclusives for the 2 mentioned episodes, I personally think it is some kind of way to I guess "balance" the content thats going to be on both systems. It is confirmed the new franchise that Rockstar is starting will be Sony exclusive. So maybe possibly they made the 2 additional episodes kind of like a "sorry but I have to go" kind of thing.

RE 5:
RE 5 looks amazing, as well as every other game thats coming out. Resident Evil 5 has some of the most amazing graphics/animations I have seen to date, but I do think MGS 4 might have better graphics. I beleive that MGS 4 has more small details, like wrinkles and such, we will have to see. Anyways. I loved RE 4 due to the fast paced action. I do kind of wish they added some RE: Outbreak elements though, like going to your menu doesn't stop the gameplay. It would make things a lot more hectic, which is what I love. I want to play this game so baaad.

MGS 4:
Since I just mentioned MGS 4, might as well go with it. MGS 4 to me looks like a must play. I always loved the story line. I know people call it a "movie" but then why has MGS been one of the most memorable series to date? Because its amazing. The story line has been the most epic story I have seen ever in a game. (God of War is close behind). Kojima suggested a college level of reading comprehension to completely appreciate the series. And well, no offense to others that don't appreciate it, maybe that is why? I DO admit that the gameplay is not nearly as stealth based as Splinter Cell (in which I love playing due to the fact of how realistic it is) but I like how it has stealth with yet many moments of action and fast paced events in which you aren't supposed to even hide. The new stealth system looks really well made, a long with the animations and actions that have been added. It probably took a lot more coding than most games so far. After all it is the first game that fully supports 7.1 surround sound. (even though 5.1 DTS is standard surround). Either way, I WANT IT!!!

Burnout: Paradise
Not too impressed with. Compared to most racing games, the graphics have not changed much. I do really enjoy the arcade action racing, but also adding the "free roaming" to get to a race is kind of lame. Now if it was an offroad/rally game that was free roam that would be cool to see. Of course I will play this game though. I like to know every single game out there and played them to see all its features.

Mass Effect:
EEEEEEeeep! I freaking enjoyed Kotor and the gameplay looks so amazing (even though the car jumping was really queer looking. The story sounds amazing and graphics are amazing for a game of that genre, but I do wish that they could make the effects a little better. If you notice in some of the game play, the laser balls or w/e would "poof" on contact, and not explode or look feirce as if it were a wraith blast from Halo. Anyways, I'm looking forward to it.

Little Big Planet:
I would buy a PS3 just for this game. Creating things is what I do best. I have designed my school newspaper for 3 years and I want to take my designing skills out of school, out of CS/HL and Source engine, I want to go past that and see what I can make with this completely adorable (yes i said adorable) artistic display and algorithmic engine. I'm looking forward to build with any PS 3 user that gets the game =].

Home:
I know its not an actual "game" but I think the idea is briliant. Make a Sims (without having to worry about crapping yourself in the game) and make it basically one giant chat room for friends and even new people to IM and invite into games or into your own personal trophy room to see what acheivements you have completed. Many people think Xbox Live is better but with Home you get the exact same thing, but with more interactivity and a more fun interface.

Halo 3:
I always thought it was going to be a flop. Number 1 wasn't "amazing" neither was number 2 considering the geometrically based engine they use. Rendering more graphically intensive things took a lot of processing power. I'm still not completely impressed with the graphics, after being so hyped I thought it would look like something freaking realistic or some crap. Gameplay looks a lot better than Halo 2's which is good. I played the beta, was dissapointed, but saw what they had in store, like the armors and stuff. It made me happy. I said to myself "YAY YOU NEED STRATEGY NOW!". I know I'm not the best halo player out there, but I'm really good for not owning the game. I've been to local tournies and have gotten to semi/ finals, and the game was simply not a challenge, give me gameplay like CS, something thats freakin hard to be good at, not any of that jump sniping headshot bs. I've read the books for Halo and it never said you can jump and shoot a sniper rifle dead on where you are aiming. I HOPE they fix that atleast a bit, even if it SLIGHTLY made the shot possibity a little larger. Other than that, bring it on Covenant.

Killzone 2:
Ok I'll not beat around the bush with this one. People have been on it, and well, stop hating. The graphics on it for a pre alpha game (at that time) was really amazing. None of the bump mapping was in place, and the physics/ lighting is really amazing. I liked Killzone's multiplayer. The story was kind of not there at times, but over all I thought Killzone wasn't a horrible game. No matter how much my "Lemming" friend hates Killzone and Sony, he always plays it when he's over. This is a game I want to see in its finished product and glory.

I'll try to wrap things up, so I will quickly state my thoughts on the 3 "current-gen" consoles.

360 has the most games right now, and the largest consistant fan base. It has some really fun games, but over all has really dissapointed me. Most of my friends have had to send their 360 in several times to get it fixed. I would have expected more for a giant company like Microsoft. I think that they try to get money out of you, selling both wired and wireless controllers, charger bought seperatly. HD DVD, my friends dad got the HD DVD and so far (in my knowledge) has only used to once to watch King Kong. Now they have to rent their movies online to get it in HD DVD because all the Blockbusters in Indiana have simply dropped them for Bluray. Also about the money, why is the HDD so expensive? 180 for the HDD and transfer cable (which bricks your old HDD if I'm correct). Wow..over priced much?

PS3 in my opinion is still behind 360 but is closing the gap a bit at a time. Sony has had a lot of exclusive offers recently made including Rockstar and UT 3's mod tools. Sony online network is also free, coming with Home and FREE dedicated server online play NOT Peer to Peer connections that suffer from lag often. Wireless controller with built in charger, I like. No rumble, made me sad. It still is very pricey though (cheap compared to standalone bluray players which generally priced at 800 - 1000 dollars). I want to see what Sony has in store for their customers, seeing that they already are fulfilling most of their promises.

Wii...sigh...come on NIntendo. I thought you were going to be AMAZING!! Right now, none of my friends have used their Wii to play games in months. Fact (not really but) only 3 good games for Wii: Wii Sports, Legend of Zelda: TP, RE 4. One of which that actually has constant replay value. Nintentdooo come on guyssss. Pick up the pace!

Ok The ending I kind of hurried through because I'm just simply tired of writing, my wrists hurt, but yeah..
Feel free to give me your comments. I'd like to see what you all have to say, but please no bashing on anyone or fanboyism.

Have a nice day

EDIT!!! For those who put praising comments, thank you, I just want to have to say thanks after every one of those that come up, It seemed like I commented enough times as is lol. =] THANKS ONCE AGAIN

Sony’s Playstation 3, debuting today, is an anticipated “next generation” game console. Many titles are scheduled for launch alongside the PS 3 along with releases in the near future, such as Call of Duty 3, F.E.A.R., Madden NFL 07, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire, Need for Speed Carbon, Resistance: Fall of Man, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas and Tony Hawk’s Project 8.

 

Sales Campaign

 

Game pricing for first party game titles will be priced at $59.99. Pricing for third party game titles are expected to carry the same price tag, although there is some doubt of that, considering that the pricing design has not yet been released for third party games.

Much like the launch of the Xbox 360, the PS 3 will have two different packages, one being more expensive than the other. There is a $599 package that will have a 60GB hard drive, WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) and card reader memory ports. The cheaper package runs at $499 and comes with a 20GB hard drive.

The highly anticipated release of Sony’s PS 3 has obviously led to their new $150 million advertising campaign that includes a strange assortment of television commercials, one of which features a baby doll sitting on the floor staring at the console and laughing. This commercial is meant to capture the curiosity of the viewers and intrigue them, along with their other advertisements.

PS 3 will be equipped with all new Blue Tooth wireless controllers. Blue Tooth is a high range and speed wireless internet being adapted by most technologies today. The first 500,000 units that are sold of the PS 3 will be sold with a Blu-ray (BD-Blu-ray Disc) copy of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, included to help promote the Blu-ray system being used by Sony’s Playstation 3. 

 

The Hardware

 

Now for the breakdown of the console’s vital parts. The basic thing is that overall the PS 3 has more raw power than its main competitor, Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Many disagree with that and still believe the 360 is more powerful, which in a sense, it is, at PS 3’s launch, of course, because Microsoft currently has better software that coincide with the Xenon CPU’s (central processing unit). After a while, PS 3 will eventually catch up sooner or later and come out to outperform the 360.

Now to breaking down the specifications into highly detailed explanations. Also for those who do not understand, the details will be explained in more simple terms.

 

The CPU (Central Processing Unit)

 

Comparing the PS 3 to the 360, the PS 3 has one main core clocked (running) at 3.2 gigahertz (“ghz”, hertz means a cycle, giga equals one billion) with 7 SPE’s (Synergistic Processing Elements) also running at 3.2ghz each. The 360 has 3 CPU’s clocked at 3.2ghz each (meaning PS3 has one general use CPU while the Xbox 360 has 3) and also has two threads with each core, while PS 3 has two threads on the main core and one on each SPE, leaving 9 total. The PS 3 also has double the amount of FLOPS (2 teraFLOPS; terra equals one trillion) than the next generation Xbox. FLOPS are Floating Point Operations per Second, which involve algorithmic functions calculating processes.

 

RAM (Random Access Memory) and Bandwidth

 

RAM is basically the horse power of a car. Without high RAM, the processor isn’t much. Both consoles have the same amount of memory; the main difference is that the 360 has 512MB (thousand bytes; bytes is a unit of storage for information) unified GDDR3 (Graphics Double Data Rate 3) RAM. PS 3 has 256MB of XDR and 256MB of GDDR3. XDR was designed to be effective in small, high-bandwidth consumer systems, high-performance memory applications, and high-end GPU’s (Graphics Processing Unit). They both have the same amount of memory space, but the Xbox 360 has more bandwidth (available processing speed).  Although Sony is overpowered in that race, it is still in the lead because the design of the SPE’s allow a smaller need for extra bandwidth.

 

The GPU (Graphical Processing Unit)

 

The GPU, the powerhouse for graphics, the Xenos for the Xbox 360 and the RSX for the PS3 both are high powered. RSX can stand toe to toe with Xenos in most areas, but RSX’s pixel shading ability is greater than that of Xenos, and it just happens to be one of, if not the single most, important metric for games this generation. Everything is important, but some things are more important than others. Pixel shading ability is one of those things, since it is involved with pretty much everything shown on screen, and it’s one of the more scarce resources still. On paper, RSX and Xenos are very similar but when looking at the detailed architectures, both have some pretty decent advantages over the other. Some are that Xenos has more “pipelines” in which the information can flow, while the RSX has less, but amount doesn’t mean everything. The pipelines in the RSX is expected to feature 24 pixel and 8 vertex pipelines all in parallel. The function of the vertex pipeline in any GPU is to take geometry data (usually supplied as vector points), work with a vertex shader program, and create all of the 3D data points in a scene to a 2D plane for display on a computer monitor.

 

Something Blue

 

Sony competes against Toshiba’s HD DVD (used by the 360) with their recently (2004) patented Blu-ray player. Both offer true HD (High Definition) imagery. The HD DVD holding  30GB while the BD holding 50 GB. The BD player is able to play and burn every other type of media storage except for the HD DVD. BD can support up to 1080p (1920x1080 dots on screen) bringing a “true HD effect.” Toshiba cannot support the 1080p feature yet, but is working on it due to the larger amount of HD monitors and TV’s

With all these features, powerful and opportunity opening hardware, Sony is hoping for a great debut and future.