MS, Sony and Nintendo will all fight for the largest marketshare of console gaming once again starting this November. It doesn't matter that MS had a year long headstart with around 4-7 million Xbox360 units shipped already (sources vary widely on these numbers). It doesn't matter that Sony has only 500,000 units available on launch day. Nintendo's undeniable momentum and buzz won't mean a thing either. Why? Not one of these companies will be the biggest winner for the next 5 or so years. The lucky, huge, smiling winners will be us, the lowly gamers. With what is expected to be a relatively close three way race, we can expect to see each company pull out all the stops to get the edge on their rivals and that can only benefit us. It will mean:
1) Rapid price cuts on consoles. These guys want to get as many units off the shelves as they can (once the initial demand is met). Another option here in place of a price cut is games or accessories bundled in with the consoles for the same previous price as the plain console.
2) A wide selection of multiplatform games across all systems so no matter which one you own, you should get to play most games.
3) A better release schedule that ensures quality games are available in every month, not just kicked out the door come September, October or November. The big 3 need games coming out year round or they will risk going the way of the Gamecube (fans waiting many months for the next Mario, Zelda or Metroid with very little to fill in the time gap).
4) A true online experience that can be compared and contrasted with eachother so that us gamers can decide which one suits our wants the best. Do you want to go with the proven but pricey service or the supposedly free options that the newcomers are proclaiming?
5) Choice. One simple word with profound meaning. Us gamers are being offered a choice this generation between three viable options, all of which have unique strengths and weaknesses. It is shaping up to be a no-lose scenario whichever system you purchase.
In a perfect world, we would stop our bickering over this and that because we would own all 3 systems and have every exclusive game at our disposal. And I would be typing on a $5000 hotrod PC rig with $1000 saved up just waiting for the first DX10 video card to show up. And fanboys would stick to just praising their chosen system instead of blindly throwing mud at the others. And those same fanboys would learn how to type correctly with something approaching proper punctuation. But it isn't a perfect world, just a very sunny looking horizen up ahead. Once again, the big 3 of MS, Sony and Nintendo won't win this generation. WE WILL. And pity our poor wallets.
Comments
.....................
The neo geo was a very popular arcade console that brought you all there arcade games at home! It was a best, I actually knew somebody that had one, beleive it or not. They even had card readers, were you could save your progress in a game at home go to an arcade that had a neo geo cabinet an continue were you lefted off at home for free! But with a ($499 price tag and $60-250 cartradge games weren't cutting it even though there were "arcade perfect" in fact they were the arcade!) Where is it now?
....................
Gone.
Even though this is a whole different generation, now things are deffinately different, but $600 for a console is still steep and it will hurt the PS3 dispite the fact the it has a great fan install base. sony has hot justified its loud price, that being said its like what VegetaMaelstrom said that cross multiplatform games are going to be on all the systems so really no one console does win. However you have to admitt, the 360 has done extremely well! They got over 6 million units sold as of June of this year! So the others mainly the Wii and PS3 have a lot of ground to make up. They fact that sony's been sleeping on there #1 pedestal is also going to hurt them as well. The reason is that they've been sleeping all this time, they blindly put this unproven Blu-ray format in there console so they can have an excuse to jack up there price $200 and $350 dollars more, because there atitude is "We don't care about the compitition" is also going to hurt them as well. That being said I can see the Nintendo Wii blowing the PS3 right out of the water! Its affordable, they're bringing you next gen in a defferent way! They're controller brings tears to my eyes, it has rumble a feature and its fully motion sensor! I love that, as well as many gammers. Beleive me there is much more interest in the Wii than there is the PS3. And most people who already have the 360 will likely get a Wii. So who knows who will truely win, the 360 has prooven itself, the Nintendo Wii looks revolutionary, and the PS3 is justed a rehashed PS2 with new unproven technology that has a great past fan installbase.
Lets what's happening in 2008.......
), and were sold in limited production runs - I'm sure they had a good idea of how many they would sell...Gamers aside, I should also point out the big winner for this generation will be IBM, who designed the CPU for the PS3, 360 and Wii. Its also worth noting the only unproven technology in the PS3 is the Blu-Ray drive itself - RSX is based off of the GeForce 7800 (a good, solid graphics chipset), and Cell is part of IBM's POWER family of processors, making it a cousin to the 360's Xenon and the Wii's Broadway.
Blu-Ray is something for the long haul - I'm quite sure Sony was loath to put the PS3 at its current price point, and even at $499/599, they're still going to lose an estimated $200 per PS3 sold. Asking them to swallow $200 loss per unit is steep as is - asking them to eat $400 per unit in order to achieve price parity with the 360 is unrealistic. I'm not happy with the inclusion of Blu-Ray for a variety of reasons, but I'm certainly not going to ask Sony to take that kind of loss just so price isn't one of them.
This is the most interesting generation that's come along in a long time - I'm looking forward to it...
zain_1990