Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
Sony's business plan is so transparent it hurts. They want everyone to watch proprietary Sony movies and listen to proprietary Sony music on proprietary Sony systems using proprietary Sony HDTVs and you may as well just send all your disposable income to Sony right now. They expect the PS3 to be the gateway drug for a new generation of consumers.
Sony is the 400-pound gorilla and they're getting dangerously smug about it. "We're the biggest, we're the baddest, we can do what the hell ever we want and you consumers can CHOKE ON IT" has destroyed many a corporate leader. I don't necessarily want them to fail, but watching raw avarice get smacked down is just so satisfying, you know?
Microsoft doesn't seem to have the whole "take over the world" vibe that Sony's doing (surprising, innit), but they too are going for a total media experience rather than concentrating on one thing. I don't know how good or bad that may be. In most people's experience, "one machine does all" means "one machine that does a lot of things half-assedly." True or not, there's still that taint to it. We'll see how consumers will respond.
Nintendo is a game company what makes games and systems for games. If people flock to the Wii over other systems, it'll be because of the taint thing I just mentioned. I also like their strategy of leapfrogging the hardcore gaming market. I'm reminded of Macarthur's Pacific Island campaign, where the Japanese set up huge fortresses to prevent islands being invaded, and Macarthur just sailed straight past them. Nintendo is poised to make huge lucrative inroads into untapped markets, and all Sony and Microsoft will be able to do is wave as they sail by.
I'll go out on a limb and predict that Nintendo will be the big winner in this round of the Console Wars.
The PS3 and 360 are aimed at the 20-something crowd, with one entertainment center doing one thing at a time. Their specs seem to be almost identical, so barring a breakaway killer game available on only one or the other, there seems to be little incentive for people to buy both. Nintendo, on the other hand, is aimed at families. Mom and Dad will watch a movie in one room on the expensive HDTV, while Junior plays Mario on an old TV in another room. 6-10-year-olds won't really care about about HDTV as long as their games look OK. Though, heaven forbid they get their hands on some of Sony's M rated games. They'll get in one little fight and my Mom got scared and said, "You're moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Bel-Air!" I whistled for a cab and when it came near, the license plate said, 'Fresh' and it had dice in the mirror.
If anything I could say that this cab is rare, but I thought, 'Now, forget it! Yo, holmes, to Bel-Air!' I pulled up to the house around seven or eight, and I yelled to the cabbie, yo ho, smell you later! I looked at my kingdom, I was finally there. To sit on my throne as the Fresh Price of Bel-Air. The real differentiating factors are going to be price and gaming experience. All the reviews I've seen thus far claim that the new Nintendo controller lives up to its hype and then some. While the 360 and PS3 will offer prettier graphics, the basic gameplay will be the same old same old. The Wii seems to offer a quantitatively different experience. Given the prices, I'm guessing most households will settle on 2 consoles - either a 360 or a PS3, and a Wii. That leaves Nintendo with 50% of the market, with Sony and Microsoft splitting the other half.
Of course, I'm aware this is all speculation. I'll be interested to see what popular opinion is on this generation of consoles is a year from now, once all three are on the market.
Edit - spelling. Blackened fucked around with this message on 05-22-2006 at 03:28 PM.
and a ps3 when it drops in price.
On the other hand, PS3 frankly doesn't have much to offer me right now. The most profound thing I saw for it was the remake of Warhawk.
I do, however, like the look of a LOT of the games coming out for the 360. They may very well pull out of the faux pas of launching too early if the bevvy of games I'm liking actually do well popularly.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
I will only buy a couple games for each.
It will be a HUGE waste of money. But I'll have my thirteen hours of enjoyment on each console.
(I've had my X-Box for two years and haven't owned a single game.)
In the first year, none of the above, most likely.
quote:
And coming in at #1 is Blindy. with "Reply." I'm Casey Casem.
I'd like to point out that so far every single person voting is going to buy a Wii.
Well, Maradon's probably still at work or something.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
quote:
A thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters couldn't ever match Karnaj:
Well, Maradon's probably still at work or something.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Kaiote obviously shouldn't have said:
Where is the "Fuck Consoles" option?
We don't appreciate your kind here...
quote:
Verily, the chocolate bunny rabbits doth run and play while Mooj gently hums:
I really want to know who in the forums is touting enough cash to be able to afford all three systems. I mean, outside of Mort I don't recall anyone in the forums being exactly rich...
It wouldn't be a stretch for me. . .but neither the PS nor Nintendo gamesets do anything for me.
I think my next toy is going to be a video i-Pod and the thingamabobber that lets you watch the videos on your TV.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Mooj had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
I really want to know who in the forums is touting enough cash to be able to afford all three systems. I mean, outside of Mort I don't recall anyone in the forums being exactly rich...
Well, I obviously don't eat, so I get to budget that money towards machines.
quote:
LeMiere wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
Well, I obviously don't eat, so I get to budget that money towards machines.
We all know you whore yourself out to Japanese business men. 
On a serious note, Wii is going to be cheap and have all those awesome games from yesteryear, not only Nintendo but also Sega! X-box 360 just doesn't thrill me, and PS3 is way out of my price range.
Besides, I'll let a buddy buy one, and when I do want to play it I'll just crash his house.
Ah love mah PC.
quote:
Karnajing:
Well, Maradon's probably still at work or something.
I'm abstaining until I can see how release titles start to shape up. I'm open to the possibility that Nintendo won't fuck up and release predominantly kiddy shit titles like they did with the Gamecube and N64 even though everybody said they wouldn't. God save me for disparaging a company for being exclusively loyal to a demographic that is a decade younger than me. My baseless gut feeling is that they have not learned anything, but you knew that.
Sailing around the "hardcore" market landed them solidly in last place in the previous generation, (even despite the x-box making much smaller market penetration in Japan) which I kinda predicted and was flamed for, but what's new about that.
The PS3 might be a flop but will probably be the most popular console for the same reasons the PS2 was the most popular console - because it's predecessor was the most popular, it attracted the most customers, who in turn attracted the most developers. It takes a lot to fuck up the snowball effect.
I don't buy the line about sony trying to force blue ray down everybody's throats as a part of some huge tinfoil hat conspiracy. Blue ray discs still cost less than an N64 cart ever did, and the PS3 still plays every other existing disc medium except HD-DVD. At 54Gb blue-ray discs have about 40% more capacity than HD-DVD discs anyway, and it's looking like blue-ray discs will only cost a few cents more.
Simply having a preferable product doesn't amount to forcing your product on people, and if Blue-Ray discs aren't preferable to HD-DVD's, simply owning a PS3 won't stop people from not buying blue-ray movies and could even hinder PS3 sales.
Don't forget, folks, 1080i videos and 5.1 audio take up an asinine amount of space. The PS3 will flop if the exclusively blue-ray games are very expensive, but having 54Gb of elbow room for games to spread out in, up from 8gb DVD-9s on the 360 (and, knowing nintendo, probably less than that on the Wii) will probably turn out to be a huge benefit and it seems like it will remain the only proprietary thing about the console. The PS3's popularity is waning with the price tag as it is, and trying to force a bunch of proprietary shit on people for no other reason than because they're $ony brand, will cause the console to flop. I seriously doubt this will happen to an extent that is any greater than what the other consoles will be doing.
If you've actually bothered to read all this and are thinking about starting off a response containing an ad hominem attack and following up with a line-by-line rebuttal of every point I've made that contains little or no factual information but much emotional vitriol, or if your name is Skaw, be forewarned that my only response to your post will be "ROFL"
On second thought the "if your name is skaw" provision is probably redundant.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
Exact clock rates were not disclosed, but one development source we spoke to had this to say of the Revolution CPU and GPU: "Basically, take a GameCube, double the clock rate of the CPU and GPU and you're done."
Interesting new technology!
Reading the rest of that article really makes the revolution seem a lot like just a second revision of the gamecube with a fancy pants controller thrown in.
I'm starting to wonder if the graphics will be able to rival those of the X-Box, and by that I mean the first X-Box.
Hey! Maybe the games will be foreward compatible with the gamecube and you won't even have to buy one! Oh wait that's right the gamecube can't load full sized discs, so much for that idea. Maradon! fucked around with this message on 05-22-2006 at 09:10 PM.
quote:
Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into Kegwen who doth quote:
At least watch gameplay trailers of Wii games before you make stupid comments about its graphics capability being less than or equal to the original Xbox
The excite truck and press montages are partly what I base my tongue-in-cheek ridicule on.
If you care to link me something that you believe would be more impressive I would gladly watch it, but something tells me that I will not see the same thing in it that you do.
quote:
Maradon! had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
The excite truck and press montages are partly what I base my tongue-in-cheek ridicule on.If you care to link me something that you believe would be more impressive I would gladly watch it, but something tells me that I will not see the same thing in it that you do.
Sonic Wildfire is probably the best I've seen thus far, though admittedly it doesn't hold a candle graphics-wise to the Sonic trailers for 360/PS3.
Considering that 95% of all American households are predicted to have an HDTV by 2010, less than 3 years after the Wii's debut, that's asking a lot of people to put up with the grey bars.
It's not something people hear about.
