Like most people say, the Xbox was rushed into the market too soon. It’s a hassle, honestly.

Sony has always tried to get the best games with their consol. (My favorite game company would have to be Square Enix. They only have one game out for gamecube, and the rest are for ps2, etc.)

Nintendo was, and will always be, my favorite. Take the Wii, for example. It’s fun. Period. The kids love it, and it’s great for the family.

Alternative gaming definatly over rules better graphics.

Not satisfied? Well, what else can you expect from a 14 year-old girl? You’re lucky I understand a bit of the marketing that you are all talking about.

If it’s true, of what some of you say, MS is going way downhill. Kids want videogames that are fun. Not fancy. (…Unless if fun and fancy can become combined together and still be avordable…) The majority of wealth in families is not that very high. Like someone else, here, said that the parents would buy the more affordable one. Nintendo made fun gaming very affordable when it comes to the Wii. MS made the Xbox360 very… unessicary. But not completely, though! I enjoy playing it, every once in a while! It’s just so expensive… Sony is diong a great job with the playstations. However, when the ps3 first came out, I have a feeling it too was rushed in the market, for it still had some glitches in them, and was highly expensive. I’m sure they’ve been working on it, though. (I wouldn’t know… I didn’t get a newer one.)

Customers don’t care, really, on what consol is better than the other. (Not that I’m saying everyone counts! If you are a true gamer, you would understand.) If the consol has better games, of course they’ll buy it! If the consol has major issues that the company still needs to work on, then they’ll have to think about buying it…

To me, the most humble company would win. They take appreciation to other’s ideas and creations, and try to make something better without rubbing it into everyone’s face. They would take their time, or as much time as they have, to make something great. And if they need to improve their finished creation, they would do so.

May the best company win. <3

“1 – Microsoft has finally bested Sony in the console wars”

That’s one hell of a generalisation surely. What would have been more correct is Microsoft look set to best PS3 for now. But the reasons why are really obvious. PS3 costs zillions, the 360 is more reasonable. The 360 has a decent games base already, while the PS3’s “Gears of War’s” aint here yet. The PS3 (debatable) had stock shortages since the factories cant pump that many out just yet. You just can’t tell yet I’m sorry its ludicrous to reach that conclusion just yet. What the referenced article does point out though is MS are losing money on every console sold (over $100 each if i remember right). Is this really something to gloat about?

“2 – The Wii and the 360 aren’t directly competing.”

I have heard this thrown around alot but I don’t buy it. In an average household people go out and they buy a Wii or a PS3 or a 360. Unlike people who read these kind of blogs the vast majority don’t buy multiple games consoles. Not everyone can afford this stuff, count yourself lucky! People are buying Wii’s as opposed to the other consoles now. I don’t see how that isn’t competition. They may buy a 360 or PS3 one day but your talking mid-long term there. The point the article makes is IF the Wii keeps selling the way it is why will developers invest as much in the other supposedly front runners when they have a bigger market from the Wii? This ofc has a knock on effect of people buy more Wiis as theres more games for it etc… I will agree that atm the Wii’s games base is VERY limited especially for the previous generation average western gamer. Much depends on Nintendo’s ability to make the most of the start they have and address this issue.

“3 – The 360’s a full entertainment platform.”

No doubt here the 360 has the best multimedia platform (kindly nicked from the hacking community who gave us XBMC :P) I love Arcade its all easy to use and simple. The hard drive is however too small to have it as a full media box (at least until the hackers work out how to format a standard ATA drive and bypass the MS buy our more expensive crappy proprietary drive drivel). Its also heavily tied into you already having your Windows PC tied into it (again not everyone has one of these and certainly doesn’t have the competence to link the two). Sony’s Home sounds awesome but will it have the user base by that time who knows.

What people seem to have forgotten about the Wii is who made it. Nintendo have the IP to so many arcade games its untrue. Some have started making there way now but they’ve only scratched the surface. PS3/Sony in terms of platform but Nintendo all the way for content in this niche imo.

I’m not particularly interested in the console wars and who comes out on top. I do however think Sony and Ms are turning into the film industry by pumping out endless amounts of formulaic crap in search of a hit with little variety in between. So I am biased towards the Wii atm which I’ve found to be very entertaining.

Anyway thanks for pointing me in the direction of the original article it was a good read. Time to get back to work

I think the console will eventually morph into the home hub entertainment system that Microsoft has to own. They own the PC and they have to own the eventual replacement.

Apart from my analysis presented couple posts above, the fact that Blu-Ray snubs adult industry as Betamax once did may eventually prevent its dominance. I am being serious here…

Phasing out any part of film / entertainment industry does not help any “new formats”.

Still, my analysis stands – Seen from a European perspective, it’s a wholly different story re: consoles…

1) When are people going to realise you CAN PLUG IN A USB KEYBOARD INTO THE 360! You can use it for messaging which – with the latest upgrade incorporating integration with live messenger – is great. With the FPS adaptor you can use it along with a mouse for games too.

2) I will commend Sony a one thing at least. They have managed to convince a lot of gamers that the PS3 has a superior power advantage over the 360. Ask any game developer who has worked with both systems and they’ll tell you this is simply not the case. On paper the numbers impress, in practice, coding for modern gaming, they match up very evenly.

3) HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray. Who cares? At the moment, not many people have embraced HD and probably will not for a long time. By the time that happens, standalone players will be cheap and perform much better than the built-in Blu-Ray player in the PS3 and the HD-DVD add-on for the 360.

4) HDMI – The standard component cables with the 360 are more than good enough for HD gaming. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

5) Playstaion’s online service is free! Indeed, but it is very badly implemented and is definitely not next-gen compared to Live! Leaving a lot of the decisions up to game developers has created a very strange environmeny where things like friends list behave differently from game to game. Given the amount of time Sony have had to mimic Live!, the playstation network is shocking.

In summary, both systems are going to have and play great games. There won’t be a difference in performance and graphics between the two. The difference will be in which games you prefer and which are available for each system. Sony will probably end up selling more PS3’s thanks to the brand name, but the advantage they enjoyed with the PS and PS2 is long gone.

Let me refer you to the figures that you ignored. At this point in time, only 8% of European households own an HD-TV. So that is assuming that every SINGLE one of these households (ludicriously unlikely) wishes to adopt the Blu-Ray format, that’s still a shoddy market penetration. History has also proven one rather key factor. The better format tends to lose against the cheaper one.

Examples? Sony’s very own Betamax vs VHS. Betamax, the better format. Winner? VHS. Or how about Laserdisc? Also considered the better format, far sharper picture, variety of nifty features, flopped. Funnily enough Laserdisc is also considered by some to be a superior format to DVD due to the way it uses it’s compression, avoiding such things as ‘macro-blocking’ and giving a sharper, more film-like presentation. Flopped. Need I go on?

It is foolish to judge the potential success of a console on a format that is still totally unproven. It would be safe to say that the majority of consumers are not yet ready to give up DVD, and will not be for a very long time due to the high cost of entry into the HD market. I must repeat the figures that you managed to ignore in my previous comment, analysts believe the majority will own an HD device by 2012. That’s a long, long time in the gaming industry and long enough for developers to jump ship and abandon the PS3 to it’s fate, which they are already doing with the PS3 losing the vast majority of it’s exclusives including Assassin’s Creed, GTA4, Virtua Fighter 5, Devil May Cry 4, the recent announcement by Square Enix that Final Fantasy 13 will not be a PS3 exclusive and the strong rumours circulating that Metal Gear Solid 4 will also go cross-platform. It is plain to see that there is absolutely no certain winner as of yet and the PS3 is on extremely shakey ground and is aimed at a different niche of the market than the area which allowed the PS2 it’s success, that of the casual and family gamer, a niche which the DS and Wii are attacking with gusto at present.

Personally, i have a 360, it has never failed me unlike many of my friends 360s (which in all have spent many months away from home being repaired), and it has totally served it’s purpose. In all it is a good console. As many have pointed out it is useless for the living room due to the excessive noise it makes, to shut it in a cabinet for noise reduction would result in overheating (as surprisingly it kicks out an awful lot more heat than my ps3 seems to)!

Oh yes, i own a ps3 as well, this lives in my living room, the only film rentals i have made recently are on Blu ray, fantastic quality, the current games are fun, especially motorstorm, if they are anything to go by then i can not wait to see what is produced a year from now, the games should be phenomenal.

As i said, my 360 has served it’s purpose, to see me through until i get a ps3. I have now not switched on my 360 for near on a month, and ebay is looming.

I did attempt to use my 360 as a media centre extender from a media centre pc, that pc died the same death that my 360 is about to, i sold it, it was useless. Amazingly i then went out and purchased my first ever apple mac, the mac mini, which incredibly was tiny, could sit in my living room without making too much noise or kicking out much heat, and front row is great, does everything much better than media centre attempted to do, and to my understanding Apple never intended to create a media computer with front row and the mac mini.

Why do ms products just come across as being so inferior, and how do they manage to steal such a vast chunk of the market? The xbox and xbox 360 are ugly beasts, media on the 360 is pointless.

1/ Is the 360 really going to win over the ps3, Hahahahahaha. (well to be honest i hope not as the ps3 totally rocks).

2/ a games console is always going to be in competition with any other games console, of course the wii is a competitor to the 360, just as it is to the ps3.

3/ 360 as a media device, not in my house, well not unless they get rid of that brick, include a built in hd dvd player (not that ugly add on), make it a bit smarter (in black is a good attempt, 360 elite, but lets face it the thing is still butt ugly), make it run quieter, and definitely make it kick out less heat.

Living in Europe, I have seen the European consumers attitude towards consoles. Currently, PS3 does not appeal to the wider audience.

PS3 in Europe at least is massively, massively overpriced (Sony’s decision to “equalize” prices between Euros / USD $ has brought the price over 25-30% up compared to other markets), lacks PS2 compatibility for “cost reasons” with EE+GS removed from the EU version, and does not exactly perform admirably in sales. Initially, over 800,000 consoles were sold, for the loyal Sony fanbase. Then, the sales dropped over 80%.

In the Wii camp, the console is still hard to find in most European countries, and has set some unprecedented sales records in individual countries that indicate consumers liking its innovative features and / or its price point, two things that it inevitably has.

In the 360 camp, several people have bought it and enjoy it, Xbox Live is branded well enough and penetrates most broadband-enabled homes, and its no longer “the poor relative of Sony”.

Amazingly enough, the barebones cost of a Wii + Xbox360 is the one of a barebones PS3 in Europe. As such, even “financially comfortable” people opted to have two consoles instead of one, and do not care.

Finally, HDTV has a much, much slower uptake in Europe compared to US or other markets, and most countries do not properly support HDTV channels yet, with only 1-2 pilot channels being available. This is poised to change by 2012 when digital transmission becomes compulsory, but certainly not before 2008-9. This renders many of the “HDTV era” advantages very premature.

All in all, it’s not a won game for Sony as it was with the PS2, and I would be surprised to see them maintain the #1 position with this attitude, pricing policy, and marketing losses (“exclusive” titles not-so-exclusive anymore – see football (soccer) games in Europe!)

The biggest selling point for the PS3 was the superior graphics, something that hasn’t materialised at all yet. In fact in some cross-platform games, the 360 is the clear winner. I suspect that will change when the developers will get to grips with the difficult design of the PS3, but it may be too late by then. Ironically enough, the most critisised aspect of the PS3, the Blu-Ray may just save it from utter failure as most of the film industry vowed to use it exclusivly against the HD-DVD. Funnily enough though, Microsoft has not made a similar commitement to the HD-DVD and stated that if it’s what people want they will make the Blu-Ray aviable to them just like the HD drive is now.

The PS2 was a huge success but mainly down to a handful of high quality games franchises coming out on it first. If you take away GTA, GT and MGS from the PS2 it would not have sold as well.

MS will probably close the gap with the 360 as it has been out longer, however i would think the PS3 will eventually retake its crown when the big games start coming out.

It was well documented that each xbox was sold at a huge loss, but MS did this in order to break into the market. Im not sure if this is happening with the 360 or not but they now have a strong market share and will not have the huge startup costs from entering the industry.

The Wii is fun but after playing one i cant help feel there is somewhat of a novelty factor attached.

sorry but the 360 will deplete in numbers very soon. because of sales, and the facts that more n more of 360’s are breaking down every day. my brothers 360 broke yest. i laughed. they rushed it, and look wot apend.

The Gamecube was 1. The Previous Generation 2. Used smaller discs and was thus unable to play DVD’s. Mainly an anti-piracy attempt from Nintendo (that worked!) but also to decrease load times. 3. Not as powerful as the Xbox.

On the Subject of the Dreamcast being a total failure, whilst it did fail in the mainstream market due to a certain Playstation 2 on the Horizon, ask any seasoned gamer over 21 and they will likely say that the Dreamcast is one of the greatest consoles ever made. And did you know that Sega only stopped manufacturing them last month? It lasted 9 years!

The 360 Elite is a waste of time however as it is just a Premium 360 painted black with a larger HDD. It doesnt have the HD-DVD drive and it still has the worst GUI of the present consoles.