It’s not the graphics that have me excited about GTA IV. I trusted that they would improve the graphics over previous versions, and from what I’ve seen they’ve done a great job, but it’s another feature that really has everyone waiting in anticipation for this game. For the first time, GTA IV will have a multiplayer mode that can be played online with up to 16 total players in one city at the same time. There are a variety of multiplayer modes and options, including using lopsided teams. If you’ve got 2 friends who can dominate these games, see how well they do when trying to fend off 14 of your other friends trying to take them down with cars, guns, helicopters, and even planes. Nearly everything is possible in the new GTA universe, which is probably why child advocacy groups are so opposed to it.

Grand Theft Auto IV Update, Radio Stations and Guns!

I have heard that people who have bought and played the console are also having some major freezing problems. I have not, but I’d like to hear your story. Send in some comments including the game being played, environment (temperature and positioning of unit) and any other factors that may have contributed to the problem.

Technorati Tags: sony, ps3, freezing

Although the Sony network is free for PS3 owners, it has been highly criticized for not being as stable as other gaming networks, such as the XBox Live network, which costs $3.84 a month. Let’s hope Sony gets their act together and buys some more servers so people can actually enjoy their online games.

Technorati Tags: ps3, gran, turismo, network

Without a doubt, this has been a failed launch. There were no great games to show off what the system can do. Even one of these games would have changed everything. Launching without a big title was a major error by Sony. None of this should concern PS3 owners about the future of the console. In the next 6 months we are expecting some very big games, and hopefully at least one of those developers will have figured out a way to take advantage of the system and build a game that blows away the competition on the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

Like I’ve been saying for weeks, now is not the time to own a PS3. Go buy the Wii, it looks like a lot of fun, and it’s relatively cheap. In 6 months to a year the PS3 should have something to really show itself off, and then would be a good time to buy. If history is any indication, the price of the system will be $150 to $200 cheaper by this time next year.

Technorati Tags: ps3, sony, supply, ebay

One thing users might not enjoy is the changes Sony made to the resolution settings. The system is designed to automatically detect the optimal resolution setting for the user’s TV, but there are many debates over which resolution settings are optimal. 1080i is now above 720p, according to Sony. Many people will disagree with that view, and with the new firmware they have no way of forcing their PS3 to display in 720p.

Technorati Tags: sony, ps3, firmware

There’s a lot of money to be made from video games, and a lot of risk in video game consoles. Sony is currently losing hundreds of dollars for each PS3 system it sells. One speculator estimated that they would need to sell 30 games for each system to make a profit. I have never purchased 30 games for any one video game system.

Game developers pay the companies that make the video game systems a portion of the purchase price of a game. They obviously spend millions of dollars developing the games, but their other costs are very limited. It might cost $.75 to manufacture a game and put it in a pretty case. Popular games will get discounted after a year or so, because game developers know they can still make a lot of money for each sale.

Sony appears to be going the route of Sega, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. That will leave Nintendo and Microsoft to battle for video game supremacy in the future, and for the first time it will be the software manufacturers who have the leverage power when negotiating licensing fees for games. Instead of small companies trying to sell their niche games, it will be big companies like Sony and Sega negotiating deals for blockbuster games like Gran Turismo and Soul Caliber.

Technorati Tags: ps3, sony

Developers often use junk data as padding to push the actual game data to the outer edges of disc. This will improve read times on devices like DVD drives. It should not improve times on a Blu-ray drive, because Blu-ray is supposed to have constant read times over an entire disc.

So why all the junk? Perhaps they were told that the game needed to appear that big to make a greater case for Blu-ray. It could have pursuaded other developers to only make games for PS3, because if they wanted a decent game they would need to use a lot of space. Of course, now we see that’s not necessarily true, at least not at the moment.

Technorati Tags: ps3, resistance, bluray

The XBox can do several things with the Mac that the PS3 cannot, such as play streamed music and play DVDs via the HD-DVD drive. The XBox 360 can also play music directly off an iPod.

With the current popularity of the iPod, I would expect to see Sony or a third party add more support for the device. If the PS3 is going to be the media center Sony has claimed it will be, it must have support for the iPod.

Technorati Tags: ps3, xbox360, sony, mac

A Sony rep has admitted that there is a problem and a firmware upgrade is in the works, so don’t make this a deal-breaker. In the meantime, get an HDTV that will display in 1080p! If you’re going to spend $600 on a video game system, you might as well spend even more to get the best TV setup money can buy.

Technorati Tags: ps3, sony, 1080p, 1080i, bluray

Some may question the usefulness of playing 15-year-old games on a new system that costs $600. Of course, nobody is going to buy a PS3 just to play NES games for free, but remember this: the Nintendo Wii offers old NES games for download… for a price. So I guess that’s a checkmark you can put in Sony’s favor.

Technorati Tags: ps3, sony, playstation3