Popular Science Compares the consoles: GameCube, PS2 and Xbox

Originally posted by Bran Muffin


i dont see how thats hilarious..but...i cant tell you that if you were here for the PS2 launch, you would have noticed quite a bit of flack going its way for not living up to the hype, and the DreamCast was in the same position that PS2 was in for that article...dont make ignorant assumptions...

At first I was going to go into some long drawn out post responding to your reply, but just forget it. It makes no difference to me what you believe. Whatever helps you sleep at night man.

As far as me being here for Ps2\'s launch, I was. Maybe I didn\'t register as a member, but I was here and to tell you the truth, one of the reasons I don\'t own a PS2 right now is b/c of some of the complaints made by Ps2 fans themselves saying the console didn\'t live up to the hype, only at this point that\'s just the tip of the iceberg as far as reasons go for me not owning a PS2.

Originally posted by kimathi


At first I was going to go into some long drawn out post responding to your reply, but just forget it. It makes no difference to me what you believe. Whatever helps you sleep at night man.

what the hell does that mean??  or were you referring to the first part of my post? cos that would make more sense... i dont ACTUALLY believe he is paid by MS, but it wouldnt surprise me... but if you think he was being completely professional and unbiased, you my friend are the one who is being ignorant in an attempt to sleep at night...

WHY WOULD ANY PROFESSIONAL TELL YOU NOT TO GET A PS2 UNLESS YOU WANT GAMES!?!?!  WHY WOULD YOU GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO MAKE SURE THE READER KNOWS THE XBOX WOULD GET GAMES???  only a biased opinionated person would do that... his article is so flawed its not funny, and your defending it?  and arguing against me, im just pointing out the flaws, sorry if you thought i was trying to sound like a Sony fanboy(although i did a pretty good job at it )...

Pathetic..
First sign of bias was when he called GameCube a lunchbox.. And then a kiddie system..

Originally posted by IronFist

The PS2 launch was a whole year ago.  Of course we know that the PS2 didn\'t live up to all the hype, and we discussed that months and months ago.  We can only dwell on that for so long before we move on.  Now it\'s Microsoft\'s turn. Also, the anti-PS2 people bashed and mocked the PS2 launch a year ago, so why shouldn’t the PS2 fans get their sweet revenge now?

IronFist, I\'m not trying to change your mind about the article itself b/c I don\'t really care that you disagree with it or not. I specificaly stated that WHAT the guy wrote about should be debated. Personally, some of what the guy wrote I do agree with and some of you guys do too b/c you\'ve stated some of the same things yourselves but b/c this guy comes out so openly with this article, some of you now have a problem with it.

As far as MS trying to force themselves into the industry all I can say to that is.......welcome to the real world. Damn right MS is trying to force itself into the console market, b/c do you honestly believe that Sony and Nintendo is going to welcome them with open arms and say "Glad ta see ya guys and btw, take all these extra customers b/c we don\'t need all those extra, nasty billions to be made, holding us back". You speak of MS buying out talent, but you disregard Sony pressuring Squaresoft into not developing for anyone else or only on a limited basis. That sounds like a double standard to me coming from you.

Sony got into this business to steal away some of the millions that Nintendo and Sega were making first; the same thing MS is trying to do now, no difference.

I only brought up the launch issue as an example to shed some light on what I think is a lot of bias in this thread expressed against MS b/c of what someone else wrote. As I\'ve stated before, yes debate the points of the article, but you brought up that MS must have had a personal hand in shaping that article and that is ridiculous.

Originally posted by Bran Muffin


what the hell does that mean??  or were you referring to the first part of my post? cos that would make more sense... i dont ACTUALLY believe he is paid by MS, but it wouldnt surprise me... but if you think he was being completely professional and unbiased, you my friend are the one who is being ignorant in an attempt to sleep at night...

WHY WOULD ANY PROFESSIONAL TELL YOU NOT TO GET A PS2 UNLESS YOU WANT GAMES!?!?!  WHY WOULD YOU GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO MAKE SURE THE READER KNOWS THE XBOX WOULD GET GAMES???  only a biased opinionated person would do that... his article is so flawed its not funny, and your defending it?  and arguing against me, im just pointing out the flaws, sorry if you thought i was trying to sound like a Sony fanboy(although i did a pretty good job at it )...

Well all I can say at this point is that we\'re definately at an impasse, and that I won\'t change your mind and my opinion won\'t change, so I\'m through with it b/c it would be pointless to continue this debate. So it\'s still all good.

kimathi,

for someone that claims they don\'t care you sure use a lot of words show it.

While a few people hear did argue specific parts of the article to show how ridiculous it was, I think many here probably feel the same way I do, to a serious gamer the article was absurd on so many levels we just dismissed it and moved on. The damn thing reeks of having been paid for, whether it actually was or that proof should be offered to that effect is of no consequence. This is just a place to talk about games/systems/opinions, no need to pretend our chat it will affect the world of gaming like a court of law. I tend to look at boards like these as a barometer of what\'s going on in the gaming world, not a means to try and sway it one way or another.

Take for example the assumption Sony has forced Square to remain exclusive to PS2. There\'s no proof it is so and in fact there\'s been statements released by both companies to the contrary. Common sense should tell you Square is in no position to be spreading themselves thin at the moment yet you just accept Square has been bought out by Sony to the degree where they won\'t ever make games for anyone else. While it may be a reasonable assumption it has no more solid basis than some of us suspecting the article in question is just part of the MS xbox PR campaign.  Agree or disagree if you want. Demanding the article be seriously debated or else proof of payola in the writing of it so we can have our say, in light of how silly I found the article, is utter nonsense. Have a good look at your own bias before you complain about the bias of others.

what the **** does it matter if the xbox is technical superior to the ps2, it just depends on what the public is ready for, We\'ve had a 128 bit machine sort or less equal to the ps2 for 3 years, did that matter? Hell no they\'re ****ing broke now selling their souls to the evil sony corporation.Sony knows of this little bug in consumers minds and has fine tuned their marketing schemes to the braindead level that most of us live on, it kinda reminds me of the instinctal urge of people to go stand in line in front of an atm machine while less than 3 metres next to it there\'s an unused one, Introducing far inferior technologies wich they praise as the best around using the "failures" of other companies like sega as research and then when time is ripe make their move. It\'s a freakin dog eat dog world out there and the gaming industry is no exception!Like with every commercial product, ****, it\'s not what you\'re selling its how you sell it and when, and the when is even more important than the how so i don\'t need your oversimplified moronic comparison telling me what to buy .i don\'t ****ing know who you are and i don\'t care the least bit but publishing something like that is an outrage. the mere thought that some people even might consider this some kind of valuable information makes me pissed off! people like you have no buissiness writing about that **** especially a lowlife sellout like you. you\'re no better than the big videogame corporations ripping us off. So get a freakin ******* and start pirating!

i\'m also outraged for the ****ing ******** what the hell is that about??is it a sin to say **** you i thought we\'d all moved passed that. this MUST be an american board goddamn hypocrites!

The more I read this article the more I become convinced that it is some hack photoshop job, or some kind of scam cooked up by an obsesive Xbox fanboy. Now normaly I would be the last person to propose any kind of a conspiracy theory when I see one (or two) of the consoles I like getting bashed, but lets analyze the article to find the evidence.

1. The subtitle for the article reads "Don\'t buy a PS2, GC or X-Box until you read this article". Okay that\'s fine, the reader can expect a fairly well balanced comparisson of all three consoles. But then the author opens by saying that since he\'s already played the PS2 at home he\'ll just dissmiss it! WTF is this supposed to mean? Even if this idiot author already played the system he should assume that readers of the article have not, and hence he has a responibility as a journalist to inform them of its characteristics and features.

2. Next he goes and states that the Gamecube looks more like a "lunchbox" than a "serious game machine". Everyone knows that the term lunchbox is something your average message board fanboy spews around as a jab at the Gamecube\'s design, and no serious journalist would be likely to draw this parallel. Any serious journalist would also remember to note that the GC is available in 5 colors in addition to purple.

3. The author then goes on to make typical fanboy defenses of all of the points that the Xbox is normally criticized on. Starting of with the fact that some games look rather lackluster (4x4 Evo and NHL Hitz 2002), but he dissmisses this by saying that they are "not worthy of such a powerful plataform." Then he states that all the other games are keepers, which is obviously a blatant exaggeration (although this could geniuinely be attributed to presonal taste it seems unlikely that anyone would make such a statement. The author names PGR and Halo as outstanding titles, which is reasonable enough, although he mistakenly calls PGR a simulation. Now I might be streching my conspiracy theory a bit much with this one, but it seems possible that he could have called PGR a simulation so as to make it seem that it competes directly with GT3 and, if you believe his statements, beats it "hands down". Next he mentions two lackluster titles, with mediocre graphics at best, as titles worth trying for the graphics. It seems to me these were the only other titles this loser had in his collection, why else would he mention such an unusual pair of games? Lastly he defends the Xbox\'s akward controller with the typical "once you get used to it it\'s great!"

4. His comparison of Madden on all three consoles is just wrong. Although Madden might look slightly better on Xbox than the other two systems (and I\'m not even sure you can tell the difference between the GC and Xbox version) there is now way that it blows them away. As a matter if you want to "shed some serious light" on the graphics issue Madden 2002 is probably the worst possible game you could choose, due to the fact that all 3 versions are nearly indistinguishable.

5. Lastly, his conclusion just screams biased. He glorifies the Xbox, disregards the GC as a kiddy system, and then goes on to say that unless you want to actually play games on your system as soon as you purchase it you shouldn\'t even bother with the PS2.


Well, that was my shot at being a conspiracy theorist. I hope it didn\'t sound overtly ridiculous, but I guess we\'ll know when somebody actually reads Pop. Sience issue Feb. 2002.

An expert is a person with an opinion and a word processor.

kangu-G^Ltt^s and Heretic summed this one up quite nicely, but I\'m still going to reply to you Kimathi.

Originally posted by kimathi
As far as MS trying to force themselves into the industry all I can say to that is.......welcome to the real world. Damn right MS is trying to force itself into the console market, b/c do you honestly believe that Sony and Nintendo is going to welcome them with open arms and say "Glad ta see ya guys and btw, take all these extra customers b/c we don\'t need all those extra, nasty billions to be made, holding us back".

You missed my point entirely.  I was not blaming Microsoft for trying to break into the industry.  I was pointing out exactly why I thought it was resonable to believe that Microsoft paid PopSci to write that article.  They have done these kinds of things many times before, and in order to break into the industry they know that they\'ll have to do everything they can -- even paying magazines to give great reviews of the Xbox.

You speak of MS buying out talent, but you disregard Sony pressuring Squaresoft into not developing for anyone else or only on a limited basis. That sounds like a double standard to me coming from you.

I don\'t think you know all the facts about the Sony/Square situation.  Last I heard, Square wanted to develope for the GBA.  But in order for Nintendo to allow Square to develope for the GBA, Square had to develope some of their best games on the NGC.  Can you blame Square for turning down that offer? (because they would obviously get a lot less money if they released their games on the NGC instead of the PS2).  I don\'t blame Nintendo either though, because they don\'t need Square to make the GBA successful.

Sony got into this business to steal away some of the millions that Nintendo and Sega were making first; the same thing MS is trying to do now, no difference.

Like I said, I don\'t mind that Microsoft is trying to get into the industry.  I just don\'t like the way they are doing it.

As I\'ve stated before, yes debate the points of the article, but you brought up that MS must have had a personal hand in shaping that article and that is ridiculous.

No it\'s not.  I gave you reasons why it isn\'t rediculous above.

Originally posted by Heretic
kimathi,

for someone that claims they don\'t care you sure use a lot of words show it.

While a few people hear did argue specific parts of the article to show how ridiculous it was, I think many here probably feel the same way I do, to a serious gamer the article was absurd on so many levels we just dismissed it and moved on. The damn thing reeks of having been paid for, whether it actually was or that proof should be offered to that effect is of no consequence. This is just a place to talk about games/systems/opinions, no need to pretend our chat it will affect the world of gaming like a court of law. I tend to look at boards like these as a barometer of what\'s going on in the gaming world, not a means to try and sway it one way or another.

Take for example the assumption Sony has forced Square to remain exclusive to PS2. There\'s no proof it is so and in fact there\'s been statements released by both companies to the contrary. Common sense should tell you Square is in no position to be spreading themselves thin at the moment yet you just accept Square has been bought out by Sony to the degree where they won\'t ever make games for anyone else. While it may be a reasonable assumption it has no more solid basis than some of us suspecting the article in question is just part of the MS xbox PR campaign.  Agree or disagree if you want. Demanding the article be seriously debated or else proof of payola in the writing of it so we can have our say, in light of how silly I found the article, is utter nonsense. Have a good look at your own bias before you complain about the bias of others.

Heretic all I can say is this, the article was that guy\'s opinion and opinions can\'t be proven right or wrong; yours ,mine or anyone\'s so I try to stay away from proving or disproving opinions, but the statement that MS paid for the article is no longer an opinion but it is an accusation. I brought up Square in order to show that BOTH companies could be accused of shady business practices using that kind of logic. That is all I was trying to point out. I try to keep my own bias in check everytime that I post, do you try to do the same?

a one page article in popular science doesn\'t deserve this much attention from ya\'s

Okay, who actually even read Popular Science?


Even my science teachers don\'t read that crap.

Originally posted by Vapor Snake
Okay, who actually even read Popular Science?


Even my science teachers don\'t read that crap.

I used to all the time.  It is actually a very good and up-to-date magazine.  That is another reason why I think this article has been paid for.  In all the years that I have read it, I have never seen an article this biased -- not even when the overly-hyped PS2 was the system in the spotlight in the Summer of 2000.