Posts from other blogs and news-sources are in smash's shared links. (check-it)

--- Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Playstation 3: Day Three, ... Graphics

Permalink: 1/09/2007 12:01:00 AM | << Back Home

First I wanted to post a few quotes from an article I spotted in the BBC's Technology column, concerning Blu-Ray: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6243383.stm

"We recognise that the two formats are here to stay."
But the backers of Blu-ray are much more bullish and are predicting victory. ... Blu-ray has more backing from film studios and more makers of the players, but HD-DVD has sold equally well in the first year of release. ... But the Blu-ray camp believes a library of exclusive titles and the power of PlayStation 3 - which has an in-built Blu-ray player - will see the format pull ahead in the next 12 months. ... Mike Dunn, president of worldwide home entertainment for 20th Century Fox, said: "I really believe the format war is in its final phase." ... Supporters of Blu-ray believe that the late arrival to the market in 2006 of new next generation Blu-ray DVD players has given a more even picture than is true. ... Currently there is an even number of titles available for both formats but most analysts predict there will be more content available for Blu-ray than HD-DVD next year. ... Seven of the eight major US film studios back Blu-ray and five of them are exclusive to the format.

The HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray battle feels like XM vs. Sirius to me... XM has the clearer name, but Sirius is catching up due to its content. However, I am slightly biased... being both a Sirius subscriber and "Blu-Ray"-equipped viewer.

One thing that I noticed today was the PS3's new, smaller game cases were not exclusive to the system... and in-fact the next-gen DVDs also share them. HD-DVD cases are red, Blu-Ray are blue. Very nice.

Image credit: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/ces2006/gallery01.html

Below is a side-by-side comparison to a previous generation DVD case. (a Nintendo Wii game, for example.) Now that I realize that this is considered to be an accepted case format (not just exclusive to the PS3), I agree... it's a step in the right direction.

In other news, my two game demos, "Gran Turismo: HD Concept" and "Genji: Days of the Blade", were ready to be played this evening. Overall I wasn't that impressed with the GT... it was clearly just a port of Gran Turismo 4 for PS2 with some minor functionality added. However, the "Genji" demo had some fantastic graphics.

Sorry about the flash in this shot:

Title screen, and a shot from "Resistance: Fall of Man":

...Way better than anything I've seen on Xbox 360. I only wish that I hadn't finished playing "Tony Hawk's Project 8" on PS2 before upgrading, as I'm sure that would have looked fantastic as well.

Labels: playstation 3