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[n1cholas]

PS2 (March 2000):
- Exotic chip design at a time when PC graphics were making huge strides (Voodoo, NV10) and would have been a much better choice

Sony's approach was "We will create it and they will come" while Microsoft's DirectX team was actively listening to developers about what they wanted from the console and APIs and it helped shaped the design of the Xbox.

Sony were lucky not to end up at the mercy of 3DFX who were experiencing difficulties, Sony would likely have been forced to buy the company.

Nvidia have always charged hefty premiums for their hardware with restrictive practices, it's why Microsoft and Sony shunned Nvidia when creating current gen consoles.

PC parts on the whole would have been too expensive and given issues with developing APIs of the time cross platform probably wouldn't have been much if any better as developers would still be developing for a multitude of hardware and APIs.

Being largely in-house developed hardware gave Sony the edge when it came to pricing and this was one of the big factors in Sony's success as they were able to cut unit price while keeping losses lower than Microsoft and Nintendo.

PS2 (March 2000):
- Subjectively worse textures and picture quality than 1998‘s Dreamcast

The textures themselves for the time were fine given the limited amount of RAM on offer but you can't appreciate said textures due to the awful texture filtering and picture that is more often than not interlaced.

PS2 (March 2000):
- No ethernet in every box (severely limited PS2 online gaming)

This didn't really hurt the PS2 much as online console gaming was in its infancy, it really came back to hurt Sony with the PS3 as the PS3's early online was barebones and woeful because Sony had little experience with online.

PS2 (March 2000):
As the lead platform for the majority of console games between 2000 and ~2006 I can‘t help but feel PS2‘s design crippled the entire generation of console software.

Had for instance Xbox been the lead platform (assuming the same sales success), the overall technical standard of games during the generation would have been drastically different. There would have been much more leverage of advancing PC games engines and tech.
This would arguably also have led to a smoother entry into the HD era (especially for Japanese studios).

I have a strong dislike of Sony given their past practices which I've no doubt they'd return to if they could but the 6th console generation was always going to be one of growing pains given the lack of standardisation in the industry.

I think Japanese developers often adopted the mindset that because it was hard developing for the PS2 it was worth doing, an achievement if you will to get the hardware to sing whereas a western developer would just view it as a waste of time and frustrating.

I would have preferred if Xbox was the lead platform but normally the most powerful general purpose system does not end up being the baseline SKU as it would be too hard to downgrade games to the weaker systems.

PS2 (March 2000):
PS3 (November 2006):
- Exotic CPU design. Cell was exciting at the time but the added complexity and cost (599$ launch price) do not seem to have paid off
- Split memory pools

Late-gen PS3 titles from Sony 1st and 2nd party studios like Uncharted 3, The Last of Us, God of War Ascension, Killzone 3 etc seem to be more technically advanced than anything on XBox 360. I assume this is due to Cell and having a hard drive in every console.
However in the bigger picture this did not really lead to new types of games that were not possible on Xbox 360.
So the added complexity, hardware cost and multiplatform headaches for 3rd parties do not seem to have been worth it in retrospect.
[/MEDIA]

The PS3 is a poorly designed gaming system with large amount of the initial unit build cost spent on Blu-ray, Cell and split memory types which added little to the core gaming experience and would have much better been spent on GDDR3 RAM and a more powerful GPU which would have enabled it to handily outperform the Xbox360 and show why the PS3 was worth the additional investment for gamers.

If not for poor planning and design choices the PS3 could have at least been from a general purpose standpoint comparable to the Xbox360 and most likely better for a similar price and Sony would have easily sold 100 million units. In hindsight going with Nvidia was a mistake but maybe ATI didn't have the resources at the time to partner with Sony.

The Cell was an awful general purpose CPU and would never have gained widespread adoption in devices due to its shortcomings.

The PS2 and PS3 were successes IMO as a gamer although the PS3 certainly not financially for Sony, the lasting legacy of the PS3 was that it caused Sony to change tack and acknowledge that not listening to developers and creating exotic hardware was a recipe for loosing market share.

All things considered I look back at the 6th console generation with fondness and I can't say the same for the 8th console generation which has been marred by an underwhelming variety of new game types, buggy/incomplete games on release, microtransactions and games as a service used as an excuse to release buggy/incomplete games often for full RRP.

 

[pawel86ck]

3DFX in PS2? Sony had to design their console way before March 4, 2000, so the best 3dfx card they could get at that time was probably voodoo 3, and I'm not even so sure if that card was faster compared to PS2 graphics card (not to mention it was limited to just 16 bit color rendering). 6 million trangles per second (Voodoo 3 2000 at 143 MHz), and 8 million triangles per second (Voodoo 3 3500 at 183 MHz) when ps2 was pushing 8-10 millions (despite sony's 70 million claim).

For me specification wasnt important back then, all what I wanted is to be amazed, and graphics on PS2 really amazed me. I still remember when I saw PS2 games gran turismo 3, colin mcrae 3, devil may cry for the first time, I was totally shocked, and I have never seen anything that would look nearly as good on my PC.


What the PS2 developers have to say:
(excerpts from interviews from IGN.COM)
Jason Rubin from Naughty Dog:

Question: Have you had any trouble working with the PS2 hardware? And what kind of tools have you been working on?
Jason Rubin: We were very early on PS1. I think that we were the 30th project started. We were also EA's second Genesis title. Both of these starts happened before the hardware was on the shelf in Japan, and well before America was going to see the systems. This is a hard fight. New hardware is never complete. And even as it completes, you still have the uphill battle of fighting to do things that have never been done.
The PS2 is hard as well. But this is not because the hardware is difficult, it is because there are more new things that can be done than ever before.
We think that the jump from Genesis to PS1 is SMALLER than the technical hurdles between PS1 and PS2. This is NOT because the hardware is specifically harder, but because technology is really changing
We went from trying to simulate everything cheap on the PS1 to actually being able to do it on the PS2. But we have never done these things before, and that is challenging the industry.
Question: Do you think there will be any major advantages to the Dynamic hardware setup of the PS2 as opposed to traditional PC-esque hardware, it seems to making mainly problems for developers?
Jason Rubin: Yes, I do think that there are advantages to the hardware setup of the PS2. The multiprocessor setup of the system allows the PS2 to do so many things at the same time (if programmed well) that the hardware is actually far more powerful than its spec. They say the X-Box is going to be either 600mhz or 1000mhz. The PS2 is only 300mhz. But if you can have your background engine running in 10% CPU and 50% VU1 time, then you have far more power.
That is how we are doing our programming for the next game. I think that the problem with the current games (the ones you have seen) is that they have opted to take the easy way out and they are only doing CPU code.
So think of it like this. They are actually leaving a significant part of the power of the system on the table. We plan to bring that power into the game.
And yes, of course there will be more powerful systems in the future. That is how technology works. But the X-Box may not be that system.
Question: In what ways do you think the PlayStation 2 will change gaming as we know it today? Do you think that it'll be revolutionary?
Jason Rubin: The PS2 will first be evolutionary... and then later, revolutionary. First, you will see games that are similar to the past, but a whole lot better looking and smoother. Later, you will see games that do things that have never been done before.
Broadband will have a lot to do with the Revolutionary part of the cycle. We will go beyond deathmatch, and beyond the glorified chat room of EverQuest and get true multiplayer online gaming with interaction. That is something we haven't seen yet.
Question: How do you feel about the VRAM in the Ps2? Is it better than much of what's in PC's today because of its high speed? Or is it worse because of its tiny amount?
Jason Rubin: The VRAM on the PS2 is both better and worse than the PC. Sure it is smaller. A LOT smaller. But it is also much faster, which allows for more polygons, and hence better usage of the texture space.
I am not sure whether or not low polygon/high texture is better than high polygon low texture. And I guess that that is going to be the developers challenge on all systems this generation.
We are not having a problem with the texture space at Naughty Dog. I guess only time will tell whether or not this is a problem for other developers.
Question: Can you give us some tech info about Ps2?Is it really possible pushing 10+ million polygons/sec while applying FSAA, high quality textures and running a highly advanced physics engine?
Jason Rubin: To answer your question directly: Yes, I do believe that that is possible. You are talking about 166,000 polygons a frame at sixty frames a second, and I not only believe that to be true. I KNOW it to be true.

 

[Kallen0667]

umm the cell processor and the software developed to run it with games and 3D architecture could be a saving grace for sony. if they can figure it out then older graphics processors will be obsolete. so no i dont agree with the opinion that traditional processing would have made things better.

note: at one time the console market thought modern shooters could not succeed on the console platform due to sales numbers for medal of honer and the like. it just took them time to figure it out due to oversights. crap man it took them years before they discovered that 2 analog sticks could be used for 360 degree aiming and movement, ohhh man freaking using the bumpers to aim up and down i have no idea how i used to do that lol.

 

[gregorjk]

Both consoles made money in the long run. Neither are failures.

 

[Raizing]

Not really a failure from a hardware perspective just inferior to the competition. The PS2 was cheaply made and not built to last (DRE issue specifically), I know I ended up buying at least 4 over the generation and didn't know a single person who only bought one. Xbox and GC on the other hand were tanks by comparison.

The PS3 suffered the most due to A) Sony underestimating Microsoft and B) the insane amount of hype and outright lies peddled by Sony during their E3 presentations of 2005/6. It didn't remotely live up to what was being promised. It's actually embarrassing to look back on how it was being marketed pre-launch. The Cell may have been difficult to work with and required extra work but it was actually the one area that kept the machine from sinking due to it's superb offload capabilities, in just about every other area it was bottlenecked or underpowered, from it's 2x Blu Ray, low memory bandwidth and vanilla RSX GPU (which lagged far behind 360's complex and highly customised Xenos architecture).

I still love the original PS3 design though, the Japanese machine in particular with it's full PS2 hardware BC is a beautiful thing. After scrapping BC and Linux though the subsequent redesigns were cheap (PS3 Super Slim is unquestionably Sony's worst console) and lost a lot of what made the original machine so special.

 

[ShirAhava]

huh? these designs were amazing and still are 'worth it'

I'd say using off the shelf netbook internals to make things 'easy' for devs rather than push innovation and creativity using the cutting edge tech of the time is a failure (PS4/XBOX ONE...hardware wise these systems are rubbish and too 'samey')

 

[MultiCore]

PS2 was garbage next to GC and Xbox designs. It showed in multiplats.

PS3 was able to use some neat tricks on a few titles, but games like Skyrim show that the design just wasn't up to par with the 360.

I consider them failures, design wise, as you stated.

The only evidence you need is how similar the PS4 and Xbone are to the original Xbox design. A new exotic design would be a waste next to conventional competitors. It does make the PS4 and Switch more boring than they'd otherwise be though.

 

[Azelover]

The PS2 wasn't ideal from a hardware perspective, but commercially it was a success. A lot of things went together to make that happen.

The PS3 is complicated. Yeah, by the end the difficulties were mostly turned around. But it took a HUGE effort, and A LOT of money. Early on, Sony was making money with the PS2 and PSP, software was still selling very well. And the PS3 burned through all of that, plus a huge loss of almost two billion in the first few months.

Then, later in 07 they made their banking public, and got a lot of money from it. I can't state with certainty because it's really impossible, but I'm pretty sure a large ammount of that cash went straight into the PS3 again. All that despite having huge third party support. It took a colossal effort, and to be quite honest, I don't think it was worth it. They were head strong about their failure with the PS3, through and through. I think the industry would be better off today if they had simply supported their customers and the PS3, without being so arrogant about it.

 

[nowhat]

games like Skyrim show that the design just wasn't up to par with the 360

PS3 may or may not be up to par with 360, but I don't think Skyrim is a particularly good example. Bethesda are not really technologically that great and PS3 was a bitch to program for (and generally they seem not to grok Playstation, as is evident with how FO4 ran at launch, and partially how it continues to).

 

[Sosokrates]

PS3 may or may not be up to par with 360, but I don't think Skyrim is a particularly good example. Bethesda are not really technologically that great and PS3 was a bitch to program for (and generally they seem not to grok Playstation, as is evident with how FO4 ran at launch, and partially how it continues to).

Generally the PS3 wasnt up to par because the majority of 3rd party games were superior on the 360.

 

[pawel86ck]

PS2 was garbage next to GC and Xbox designs. It showed in multiplats.

Xbox classic was much stronger compared to PS2, but it was released 1,5 year after PS2, and that's the only reason why it was faster. When PS2 was released, the best GPU on PC market was geforce 1 (256), while xbox classic was using geforce 3 chip (in fact, xbox chip was more similar to geforce 4)

PS2 hardware was amazing at launch, although it was not easy to port pc game into it with good results. Even Half life 1 run very bad on ps2 hardware.

 

[MultiCore]

Xbox classic was much stronger compared to PS2, but it was released 1,5 year after PS2, and that's the only reason why it was faster. When PS2 was released, the best GPU on PC market was geforce 1 (256), while xbox classic was using geforce 3 chip (in fact, xbox chip was more similar to geforce 4)

PS2 hardware was amazing at launch, although it was not easy to port pc game into it with good results. Even Half life 1 run very bad on ps2 hardware.

Even at launch, the PS2 had too little texture memory, and it badly filtered the textures it did display. The dithering was pretty bad, and really pronounced in dark scenes.

The Dreamcast looked a lot better in a lot of ways.

 

[pawel86ck]

Even at launch, the PS2 had too little texture memory, and it badly filtered the textures it did display. The dithering was pretty bad, and really pronounced in dark scenes.

Three Dreamcast looked a lot better in a lot of ways.

Yes, but you really have to take the extremely fast (48GB/sec) VRAM of the PS2 Graphics Synthesizer into account because this eliminates a lot of bandwidth problems developers could have, also most parts of the Emotion Engine can independently transfer data to the Graphics Synthesizer. Xbox classic had more memory with S3TC texture compression on top of that, but again it launched 1.5 year after PS2.

 

[stranno]

PS2 was garbage next to GC and Xbox designs. It showed in multiplats.

I dont think so.

Most games were probably developed for Playstation 2 and then ported to XBOX and Gamecube. And translating the custom crafted effects of Playstation 2 to the Gamecube's TEV and XBOX's Direct3D shaders was probably everything but easy.

So you got some really awful ports in terms of effects and lightning, but better in terms of image (progressive), framerate and polycount. Just look at the Crash Twinsanity shading in Gamecube or XBOX compared to Playstation 2, it just sucks. And thats the average port from those days.

 

[MultiCore]

I dont think so.

Most games were probably developed for Playstation 2 and then ported to XBOX and Gamecube. And translating the custom crafted effects of Playstation 2 to the Gamecube's TEV and XBOX's Direct3D shaders was probably everything but easy.

So you got some really awful ports in terms of effects and lightning, but better in terms of image (progressive), framerate and polycount. Just look at the Crash Twinsanity shading in Gamecube or XBOX compared to Playstation 2, it just sucks. And thats the average port from those days.

I mean, have 2 PS2s here, a GC with component cables and an Xbox still hooked up via component. Stuff like Soul Calibur 2 really shows the differences, and DC SC1 makes it even more obvious.

I agree with you that not everyone did a good job porting games, but the PS2 made development much more difficult than it's competitors. It was the same on PS3.

The OP asked design wise. PS2 had some great work done on it, GoW, SotC, Gran Turismo in 1080i, etc, but the standouts were the exception and usually exclusives.

 

[Armorian]

PS3 is probably a bit stronger than 360 (minus ~30MB less usable memory) but full potential could only be achived in linear exclusive games, with full control over SPU's, fixed shaders and split memory pools. I recently replayed GOW3 and U3 in remastered versions on PS4 (both games have better performance and resolution but core assets are the same) and was amazed (again, after 7/8 years) by their graphics. Best looking games of 7 gen for me (with KZ2/3).

 

[Raziel]

I’ve always said PS2 is the biggest failure this industry has seen.

 

[AnimalFather]

no way the cell processor was amazing! no two snow flakes would be ever again be identical...

 

[stranno]

I mean, have 2 PS2s here, a GC with component cables and an Xbox still hooked up via component. Stuff like Soul Calibur 2 really shows the differences, and DC SC1 makes it even more obvious.

The OP asked design wise. PS2 had some great work done on it, GoW, SotC, Gran Turismo in 1080i, etc, but the standouts were the exception and usually exclusives.

I have tried lots of cross-platform games from the day and, aside performance, i havent seen any real advantage in terms of graphics in the vast majority of them.

And there are lots of ports with bugs. For example the extinguisher of Final Fight: Streetwise works perfectly fine in Playstation 2, while it barely works in XBOX, making the Guy's dojo really damn hard. Or the taser of Rocksteady's Urban Chaos, it works properly in Playstation 2 but it works like crap in XBOX.

Of course there are some cross-platform games that looks infinite times better in XBOX, like Wreckless, but there are very few of them.

 

[Armorian]

Most games used the same assets (but with better framerate usually) as PS2 was the lead platform. Some games have better textures but true difference is shown in titles with Pixel shader support, like Prince of Persia WW/T2T, Splinter Cell 1/2/3 etc. ED and HD support is great, almost all titles have 480p mode and Soul Calibur 2 looks amazing in 720p. Too bad they handicapped PAL consoles, had to softmod mine to enable progressive scan.

 

[NickFire]

Considering their market share past and present, calling any of the designs a failure is really stretching the meaning of that word.

 

[dogen]

Even at launch, the PS2 had too little texture memory, and it badly filtered the textures it did display. The dithering was pretty bad, and really pronounced in dark scenes.

The Dreamcast looked a lot better in a lot of ways.

The PS2 had a unified memory setup with 4MB EDRAM on the GPU. Kinda like how the 360 had 10MB embedded on the GPU.. but nobody would say the 360 only had 10MB VRAM.

 

[pawel86ck]

PS3 is probably a bit stronger than 360 (minus ~30MB less usable memory) but full potential could only be achived in linear exclusive games, with full control over SPU's, fixed shaders and split memory pools. I recently replayed GOW3 and U3 in remastered versions on PS4 (both games have better performance and resolution but core assets are the same) and was amazed (again, after 7/8 years) by their graphics. Best looking games of 7 gen for me (with KZ2/3).

GOW 3 and U3 are great games and I liked both, but gears of war 3 on xbox 360 was in the same league. Gears of war 1 already looked amazing, but gears of war 3 looked 2x times better.
https://postimg.org/image/sqecet80z/
https://postimg.org/image/irosf1477/

I have tried lots of cross-platform games from the day and, aside performance, i havent seen any real advantage in terms of graphics in the vast majority of them.

And there are lots of ports with bugs. For example the extinguisher of Final Fight: Streetwise works perfectly fine in Playstation 2, while it barely works in XBOX, making the Guy's dojo really damn hard. Or the taser of Rocksteady's Urban Chaos, it works properly in Playstation 2 but it works like crap in XBOX.

Of course there are some cross-platform games that looks infinite times better in XBOX, like Wreckless, but there are very few of them.

These games were far superior on xbox (ps2 version was almost unrecognizable)
Ghost Reacon 2 (much better lighting, much better shadows, much better textures, totally reworked models, nice water effects and dense and moving grass on xbox)

Splinter Cell 3 (EVERYTHING was better )


These games also looked much better
Splinter Cell 1-2,4 (better LOD, insane looking water shaders, way better lighting with shadow buffers, better textures, higher resolution)
Colin McRally 4 (MUCH better textures, more stable framereate, higher resolution)
Mafia 2 (better LOD, wayyy better textures, better framerate)
Return To Castle Wolfenstein (better textures, better water effects, more stable framerate, higher resolution)
Max Payne 1-2 (better textures, LOD's)
Wreckless (big difference in shadows, LOD's, textures, lighting)
GTA 3 and VC (MUCH better framerate, better car and people LOD's, totally reworked trees, textures, new great effects like reflections on cars)

These games looked a little bit better on xbox
NFS undergorund 1 - better framerate, better resolution
NFS burnout 2, 3 - better textures, better resolution
Prince Of Persia Sands Of Time - better character LOD's (on xbox you could see even characters fingers), better framerate, better resolution
Time Splitters 2, 3 - better resolution, better textures
black - higher resolution

I dont remember all games, but I'm sure there were more games like that on xbox. Basically xbox was multiplatform king. But there were few games, that looked better on PS2
GTA SA - some effects were removed from xbox version (postprocess orange colors, car reflections), but at the same time many things were added. Xbox version was using better textures, better shadows and it run much better
NFS 6 - probably because it was different game, PS2 version was amazing, xbox X version was crappy.

 

[Armorian]

GOW 3 and U3 are great games and I liked both, but gears of war 3 on xbox 360 was in the same league. Gears of war 1 already looked amazing, but gears of war 3 looked 2x times better.
https://postimg.org/image/sqecet80z/
https://postimg.org/image/irosf1477/

It's definietly in the same league, I was suprised that Epic was able to push Unreal 3 that far on the console. Difference is in the lighting department IMO, GG, SSM and ND engines were able to display many dynamic light sources at the same time (full deffered in Killzone and forward+ in U3/GOW3) whereas UE3 on 360 was limited to forward renderer only.

 

[arhra]

The PS2 had a unified memory setup with 4MB EDRAM on the GPU. Kinda like how the 360 had 10MB embedded on the GPU.. but nobody would say the 360 only had 10MB VRAM.

The PS2's memory setup wasn't unified, though - the CPU only had access to main memory, and the render pipeline could only access EDRAM, with any transfers between the two handled via manual DMAs. You couldn't keep textures in main memory and read them in as needed while rendering a frame out to EDRAM, you had to copy them into EDRAM before they could be used. It was no more unified than a PC with an AGP graphics card was.

The 360's setup was different (and rather unique), with the CPU and GPU both having full access to a shared main memory pool, but with the GPU restricted to *writing* to the EDRAM (and in fact, strictly speaking the GPU didn't even have *read* access to the EDRAM - z-rejection, blending, etc was all handled on the EDRAM die, and a render target couldn't be read from by the CPU or GPU until it was resolved out to main RAM). The EDRAM was *only* used for the framebuffer and any other render targets, with texturing handled out of main memory.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Both were absolutely failures when it comes to durability, I had fucking 3 PS2 slims dying on me and the fat PS3 is a ticking bomb piece of robot shit and everyone knows it.

 

[pawel86ck]

Both were absolutely failures when it comes to durability, I had fucking 3 PS2 slims dying on me and the fat PS3 is a ticking bomb piece of robot shit and everyone knows it.

Good point but in my experience all my consoles were like that. I had 2x xbox classics (and during that time I have replaced 3 lasers), 2x PS2, my x360 had RROD, PS3 FAT YLOD AND LASER problems as well. I dont know how long my current gen consoles will last, but I think xbox X may be nearly indestructible. It looks to me like Xbox X is build from very high quality materials (that console is very small but very heavy at the same time), temperatures are very low, and games use DVD drive just for installation so there's a hope DVD drive will last forever. I have never seen console so well build like xbox X.

 

[dogen]

The PS2's memory setup wasn't unified, though - the CPU only had access to main memory, and the render pipeline could only access EDRAM, with any transfers between the two handled via manual DMAs. You couldn't keep textures in main memory and read them in as needed while rendering a frame out to EDRAM, you had to copy them into EDRAM before they could be used. It was no more unified than a PC with an AGP graphics card was.

The 360's setup was different (and rather unique), with the CPU and GPU both having full access to a shared main memory pool, but with the GPU restricted to *writing* to the EDRAM (and in fact, strictly speaking the GPU didn't even have *read* access to the EDRAM - z-rejection, blending, etc was all handled on the EDRAM die, and a render target couldn't be read from by the CPU or GPU until it was resolved out to main RAM). The EDRAM was *only* used for the framebuffer and any other render targets, with texturing handled out of main memory.

I thought it was considered a hybrid uma system.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Good point but in my experience all my consoles were like that. I had 2x xbox classics (and during that time I have replaced 3 lasers), 2x PS2, my x360 had RROD, PS3 FAT YLOD AND LASER problems as well. I dont know how long my current gen consoles will last, but I think xbox X may be nearly indestructible. It looks to me like Xbox X is build from very high quality materials (that console is very small but very heavy at the same time), temperatures are very low, and games use DVD drive just for installation so there's a hope DVD drive will last forever. I have never seen console so well build like xbox X.

I'm happy to see that the X has a good build, it looks beautiful and it deserves to be as glorious as it looks. I had better luck with my Xbox Classic, but Microsoft is just as guilty here thanks to the shitshow that was the 360 RROD. I have a launch PS4 that still rocks on like a tank, although it did have an eject issue that is quite common (which forces you to open the motherfucker and electric tape the inject button, making it impossible to eject by any means other than the controller), my launch One is weirdly a bit loud but I have no issues other than that. Consoles definitely look much improved this gen, the PS2 looked like it could break anytime if you so much as farted near it. Nintendo consoles are a bit more automatic and reasonably safe, although the launch screen scratching issue with the Switch was LMAO.

 

[-hadouken]

Both succeeded (PS3 to a lesser extent) in spite of the hardware - not because of it. Being lumped with two additional generations of that same dualshock controller was icing on the cake. :/

 

[stranno]

NFS 6 - probably because it was different game, PS2 version was amazing, xbox X version was crappy.

There are exceptions but there are much more cross-platform games that those so i still think the same.

Splinter Cell was a game designed for XBOX, the PC and PS2 ports came out a year later. And the XBOX version looks even better than the PC version (unless you use dgVoodoo) so there is not much PS2 can do there.

Wreckless is a different game in XBOX, not just because of the graphics, as far as i can remember the XBOX version was just a Chase HQ clone while the PS2/GC was more like Spy Hunter, with missiles and stuff.

GTA3 and VC are remasters under a port label, but not straight ports at all. They are much better even than the PC version. There are some XBOX mods for PC but no one has been able to archive the XBOX quality 100%.

The framebuffer of Black could be higher, dont really know, but both versions support 480p and they look pretty similar to me. Its a Renderware game after all.

 

[ilfait]

PS3's aesthetic design was a total failure from the outset. It's one of the ugliest mainstream consoles ever made. The original black Xbox and the original PS3 should get married and have adorable little Game.coms together.