Console Wars: The Clone Wars

[Verto]

Originally posted by Asher

I think they've made it clear they're not competing with the Wii directly, at least it's not their primary concern.

I think Madden's release and the upcoming 65nm-GPU consoles have more to do with the pricecut timing more than anything else.

Although a 50$ price cut would bring the Arcade below the Wii.

[Asher]

Does anyone buy Arcade?

[Verto]

I would, since I've already got a HD.

[Asher]

Hah.

I'm buying a 2nd Xbox 360 before the next holiday season...probably August once the new 65nm GPU consoles came out, which hopefully coincides with an update.

We're building an "axillary home theatre" with a smaller HDTV + 5.1 system so I can play the 360 with the SO on our own boxes. Hopefully it's upgraded.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Asher
April NPD...

Nintendo Wii 714,200
Nintendo DS 414,800
PlayStation Portable 192,700
Xbox 360 188,000
PLAYSTATION 3 187,100
PlayStation 2 124,400

360 GTA IV 1.85mm
Wii Mario Kart w/ wheel 1.12mm
PS3 GTA IV 1.00mm
Wii Play 360K
Wii Super Smash Bros. Brawl 326K
PS3 Gran Turismo 5: Prologue 224K
DS Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness 202K
DS Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time 202K
Wii Guitar Hero III 152K
360 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 141K

The obvious: Wii hardware dominates.

The not so obvious: Look at the PS3's biggest franchise, GT5P...that's pretty pathetic.

Yes, Wii still kicking ass in hardware but also good software sales for Mario Kart.

Your other point is a little biased. You know full well that Prologue is selling poorly because a lot of PS3 owners (quite rightly) don't want to be fleeced twice and will wait till the full game is out.

[Asher]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Yes, Wii still kicking ass in hardware but also good software sales for Mario Kart.

Your other point is a little biased. You know full well that Prologue is selling poorly because a lot of PS3 owners (quite rightly) don't want to be fleeced twice and will wait till the full game is out.

GT4 Prologue on PS2 sold 1.36 million...

[Asher]

Here's a terrific post from Beyond3D that captures my feelings towards the Wii:

All this talk of the Wii "winning" this generation reminds me of a "Gone with the Wind" quote, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a ...." A more succint version of an above post. The following may come off a little harsh, probably because I just do not understand the draw. The same way I don't understand how what passes for "comedy" movies actually have anyone pay to see them rather than the other way around. Say the Wii grabs 120 million market share, so what? Does anyone really see it affecting the way MS, Sony, Sega, Bungie, Epic, Bioware, Turn 10, Konami, Capcom, EA, Ubisoft, etc. etc approach the industry? Maybe they try for a piece of that market share, but do our favorite core games get the Disney treatment as a result? Do we really believe that the Wii is some kind of turning point for the industry due to its success? (Warning: The following contains generalizations which are not applicable in all cicrumstances. - The simple fact that I felt the need to include that line bothers me.)

It is rather hard to describe how I feel about the Wii. Good for Nintendo. Great business move, make pile of cash selling titles like Wii Sports or whatever. They smashed the PS3 and 360 this month when, perhaps, the biggest title of this generation was released. The Wii is playing to a different crowd. The only people I know who have them, never owned a system previously. I really don't care how many consoles they sell or what gets sold on it. I've seen it, played around with one brought to the law school for a lunch time bowling "tourney." It feels like a step backwards. It's almost like the sales of those joysticks that have 2,000 old games in it. Any comparison to previous systems/games will be somewhat flawed, freely admitted from the above analogy. It's like someone took all the internet flash games, family games like "Scene It" or some other trivia based game, tacked on a motion controller and called it a next-gen system. I'm searching for comparisons or some way to put it into words. They have the "Tickle Me Elmo", "Laser Tag", or "Cabbage Patch" doll of this time period. It does not have a discernable effect on what I want to play or, so far at least, the games I want to play getting made.

I wouldn't get a GOW or GTAIV, probably not even a passable version of HALO on the Wii. To the core community, both developers and consumers, what does it really matter? Is Half-Life 3 not going to show up or get radically simplified so it can be placed on the Wii/Wii2? Anyone who wants to declare the Wii the straight up winner based on console sales go right ahead. How many of us care given the nature of the system and the games which are made for it?

For all those who are just starting to play, maybe the Wii is a good thing. Maybe it will bring more people overall and the next-generation it will start to show. People who had stepped away from gaming while they had children/ got their careers going, or just missed the boat on the early systems and computer games become core, consistent gamers.

I don't want a simplier game, I want a more complex game. Games so deep and complex that it is like when my mother and stepfather come back from "Vanilla Sky" and ask me what the movie was about. I want brutal. Not "slasher movie" brutal, but "Schindler's List", "Othello: The Moor" brutal. I want "The Usual Suspects" and the "Fight Club", the "Dr. Strangelove", "Network", "The Boys from Brazil", "A Clockwork Orange", "Road to Perdition". "Go", or "Strange Days" of video games. That is what I await. Something I feel Nintendo is the least likely of the 3 to bring. I do not want the Disney/ Saturday morning cartoon version. The closest I come to that is "Stardust" or "The Princess Bride."

Each of us, outside of reading numbers and trends from NPD data, occupies our own little world of friends, co-workers and acquantances. Online or otherwise, we tend to associate with like-minded people, skewing our view. Maybe not to the extent of that famous quote after Nixon won and some lady in New York stated she thought it must have been a rigged election because she didn't know anyone who voted for him. We may not be that level of isolated thanks to the wealth of information, but information is not experience. Those I surround myself with are well educated, intelligent and, almost universally, cynical and sarcastic. People who prefer wit to humor. They are people who do not look back to their childhood with wistful thoughts and rush out to see Narnia or the latest Harry Potter. Of those I know, those who have a DS or want a Wii are invariably the opposite of those I associate with. They still have a kid in them that enjoys messing around with Floam and Play-Doh. That system brings it out (either one.) It is their version of escapism. Fine, good for them and Nintendo, but what does it matter? The Wii(or DS for that matter) has given them some easily accessible step back into that time. Nintendo has tapped into that group and is making piles of money. Again, does it really matter to those of us who want sim racers, FPS's with a suspension of disbelief, or Madden? Games where you mutter an obscenity at the screen when someone hits your rear quarter in a turn or you are still having trouble getting around that sniper? My joy or laughter is not provoked by Disney's rat version of "Robinhood." I laughed when the guy fell off the back of the Titanic and hit one of the props on the way down.

I just cannot take the machine seriously. The same way I couldn't take the Sims or Nintendogs seriously. Nintendo has the game console version of a Yamaguchi (or whatever the heck those idiot electronic key chain pets were.) I know I am not alone when talking of my own inner circle of people, but am I alone here when I say I don't care and hold the sytem, from a non-financial viewpoint, in a certain level of contempt? What happens to Nintendo the next-generation? That controller is easily replicated. I cannot see MS or Sony coming out with a system at anything more than around 350$ initial price, so that mistake will not be taking place again. So what really changes about what we want and what we will get for the rest of this round and the following rounds? I don't see much of an effect on the established industry as far as the Wii goes. At least not to this point. I just don't see one in the future either.

So Nintendo sells the most systems. If it has little to no real impact on games progressing in their nature, then who amongst us really cares? I've lost track of the jokes on here, Kotaku, Arstechnica, etc. about the Wii sitting around gathering dust. I see no huge threads about people posting about Wii games for online get togethers or swapping pointers and stories about their exploits and failures. Just because it sells a great deal does not mean it will change the nature of games. Games are supposed to be cheaper to make for the Wii, correct? So where are the risky titles? The one's that are not sequels and you dare not risk 30-50 million and end up with "Postal." The Wii has the numbers, a cheaper development environment, so where are the benefits one would think you would get from this? The Wii may be a financial juggernaut for Nintendo. I don't see it as anything else.

[DrSpike]

I'm actually getting pretty bored of console wars. Everyone knows all the arguments backwards, inside out and upside down. There's nothing new in that post.

I'd like to kick it off on a different track, at least for a few posts. Given that the Wii offers something different to the 360 & PS3, a better question than who is teh bestest is for whom is it worth going Wii60, with both consoles.

I think it's pretty clear that most games on the Wii are not good - but how many good games do people need to shell out £180 for the console?

For me I'll inevitably get one, because I'm sure I'd have some fun with Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart and a few others like Resident Evil and Metroid Prime. I'm just stubbornly holding out for any price cut, since although I can afford it, it pains me to pay £180 a year after release, when you can get a Premium 360 for less money.

Others like Asher already have both. Verto sold his. Any other views?

[UnOrthOdOx]

If there was a decent price cut, I'ld consider it for the kids, yes.

As it stands, I just can't see shelling out that much for what is offered. I, myself, would like Mario Kart. Maybe a few others. Maybe even some old gamecube games. The kids would like a fair few more.

But, that money is far more likely to be spent on an upgraded computer, or put towards a Skulltronix at the end of the day. Part of that is I am not ashamed to say I dislike Nintendo for reasons that go way back to the original NES and Gameboy. And were there a decent competitor to the GBA back when my son got his years back, we'ld likely not have any nintendo in the house now.

[Wiglaf]

Microsoft needs to attend a course on how to make a console that isn't as ugly as possible.

[Asher]

I wouldn't call the 360 ugly, just not pretty.

[Krill]

Really? I think the 360 looks the best out of this generations consoles...Every time I see a Wii in an advert I like it, then I see it in RL and it looks fugly, white and straight lines don't mix well except in a white environment, which is where the 360 looks nice, it isn;t white and a bunch of striaght lines (and the PS3 was bashed repeatedly with the ugly stick. I'd like it more if it were in a beige box tbh).

[snoopy369]

The wii costs 180 pounds sterling?? Jesus... certainly doesn't cost anything like that (~$350-$400) over here... more like 120 pounds ($250).

I personally like the Wii design best, then PS3, then X360... but I don't think the X360 is ugly per se, just the least aesthetically pleasing of the three. I have a white/black design in the area of my Wii so perhaps that explains my ignorance of Krill's objection...

[DrSpike]

Agreed, the 360 is the prettiest.

[Wiglaf]

Are you people on drugs. The thing is mammoth. It is white and retro looking. I am not living in the 1970s and neither is anyone else to my knowledge, let's get with the 20th century people.