Consol Wars Update.

This is just a thread for everyone to give their opinion on the current the situation? Who is winning at the moment (obviously total sales is Microsoft, but in relation to release dates and stuff)? Who will be winning in 6 months? A year?

Fight!

Wii hands down.

I think Microsoft will come out on top.

There isn't really any reason to pick up a PS3 over an XBOX 360. It has a Blu-Ray drive and some cool exclusive games but 360 has Xbox Live, a lower price, a larger selection of games, and it's own exclusives.

Nintendo is popular at the moment but they need to keep the momentum up or they will fall behind.

Laptops...

Ooo thanks for reminding me about that..need to enter that comp.

http://gadgetshow.five.tv/jsp/5gsmain.jsp?lnk=480

Not sure. Too early to tell.

I think the Wii360 will outsell the PS3 and will be the console combo most people go for. But, like I said, it's too early to tell.

But, since when did the PC become a "consol"?

The games I want to play the most are coming out on consoles, not PCs. With the exception of World of Warcraft, I don't use my PC for any gaming.

I love the Wii so far, I still want a 360 for Halo 3 and Guitar Hero 2 but it can wait. Last I heard the Wii was outselling everything, I know they're still hard to find.

Personally I see no reason to buy a PS3 other than for the BluRay, and maybe the new GTA when it arrives, but $600 for a consol is way too much. You can get a Wii and a 360 for $650, the only loss is the BluRay player, and frankly I don't want to spend $30 a movie. My upconvert DVD player has an exceptionally good picture as it is, I doubt the difference would be worth $600+$30 a movie to me.

I'm enjoying the Wii right now more than anything else. It's been fun teaching my daughter to play the original Mario, and going at it with my brother again in Ice Hockey. I got most of all the old NES games downloaded. I like the 360 from what I've seen of it but I don't think I'll get one. I'm waiting for Grand Turismo and Metal Gear before I shell out the $600 for the PS3.

GTA = 360 too.

Guitar Hero 2, GTA4, Halo 3... Looks like I'll be getting a 360 at some point. But I've got a while before that happens because there is still so much to do on the Wii.

I can see the Wii taking this round in the console wars. Who woulda thought, huh? In September, it was suppose to be the Xbox2 and the PS3 battling it out for the top spot.

Now the Wii is outselling everything, and will most likely have the most users next quarter, beating out the Xbox. Only reason M$ are the "winners" right now is they had more than a year headstart.

The PS3 is selling well in Europe and in Japan, it's selling ok too. (but not as well as they had hoped.)

The Xbox has gotten themselves a solid user base, and have made inroads with the big Japanese game companies to release their games on multi platforms. And there is no denying their Xbox Live feature is very popular. The knock on Xbox games in the past is that aside from first person shooters and sports games, it doesn't have much else to offer. And although they have many good games to offer, most of them are also available on other systems. The Japanese gamer has pretty much said they will never accept it as their main system or even as a secondary system, and sales figures from Japan have indicated this.

The Wii is definitely going to have many more users this generation. The system is still impossible to find in many places, and will soon pass the 5 million mark in terms of total hardware sales. It's extremely popular worldwide, but the biggest question is, who, besides Nintendo itself, is making games for it? Do they have the support of the independent Japanese game producers? Will the companies who have traditionally made games for the Playstation be comfortable enough with the Wii to switch over, or now produce games for both? Since Nintendo is the only one actually MAKING money with their hardware sales, the future looks pretty good for them, and people will continue to buy their system for the Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon games. But if they want to win the console war outright, these are the questions they will need to address.

Meanwhile, the PS3 has fallen on some hard times. Some of their exclusive titles have become multi-platform, and they are hedging their bets that the Blu Ray format for HD movies will take off. If it does, they are back in business. Worse, they are selling the most expensive game system in a market that has proven that it wants cheap, affordable systems rather than the latest high tech bang wizardry and the high price sticker that comes with it. The biggest thing going for the Playstation 3, however, is from last I heard, it's still the cheapest High Density Movie player available, and people who are curious about this new technology will give it a try. Plus, a big userbase in Japan means eventually, the PS3 will still have a lot of good quality games.


In conclusion, I can see the Wii winning this round of the console wars, with the Xbox and the PS3 pretty much tied. But in terms of games that are fun to play, the PS3 will win hands down, with the Wii coming in second and the Xbox2 coming in third. I say this for a few reasons.

First off, everyone had been expecting the PS3 to keep rolling along at their number 1 spot for a few years. Meaning there are a whole slew of games developers have been working on for the PS3 ready to be released. Of course, sales did not come out as planned, and Sony's high price and botched launch made it so they have to play catch-up. As a result, there are some game companies that are probably thinking about making their games multi-platform, but this does not translate to losing any titles for the PS3.

Secondly, when it comes to award-winning games that come out of left field and take everyone by surprise, Japan wins hands down. How many times have we seen a Cooking Mama, or Phoenix Wright or Trauma Center come out of nowhere and gain a lot of public interest? Traditionally, these companies that produce these games come out of Japan, and develop for Japanese systems like Nintendo and Sony. By the time Microsoft hears about the new game everyone is talking about, they are trying desperately to phone the Japanese company to release it on their system. And if they are successful, their users end up getting the game a year or so later, when everyone else has already played it and the hype has died down considerably. (See Final Fantasy 11) This gives the impression that M$ is playing catch up all the time.

So to answer the OP's question, the winner will be the Wii, with the other two pretty much tied.

1. Sega, Konami, Square (soon), and others.
2. Probably - there are a lot of titles that, while published by Nintendo, are developed by someone else
3. I'd say Square's promise of FF on Wii is evidence of that.

In the next six to nine months I expect to see an explosion of announced titles for the Wii. Many publishers and developers were taking a wait and see approach and now that the Wii is selling well will definitely be producing titles for it.

I still think in the long run that the Wii is going to sell the least software units though, while it is a popular machine I see most users buying a few really fun titles, and buying a lot of titles on the 360/PS3 as they become cheaper.

It really depends on your definition of win...producing a quality title for the Wii is going to be much cheaper than producing one for PS3/360, so even if on average each title sells less the publishers could still make more money there.

In terms of installed base and software units sold, Microsoft or Sony is going to win, in terms of profit made Nintendo is going to win (and will sell more first party titles than either of its competitors).

I disagree. I bought a Wii just because it is so fun to play. The Wii is revolutionary in terms of game play. Everything is interactive. PS3 is going to be fun, but it's going to be the same old thing we've seen for the last 10 years except with exceptionally good graphics. With the Wii you point and shoot, slice like a sword, swing like a golf club, throw like a football, and there are countless more possibilities. It is the next best thing to being in the game, it almost feels like a 3D experience.

PS3 will no doubt have some great titles that are fun to play, but now that the software developers are hopping on board with the Wii I expect it to be hands down the most fun console to own.

The PS3 will win the war in the long term, the Wii thing is just a novelty family oriented fad that will die off soon and the M$ piece of crap will be replaced soon in order to compete with PS3. Sure the games selection to start off with may not be teeth shattering but I reckon by Christmas things will have changed.

And anyway a PS3 is worth buying just the Blue Ray player alone which is far superior to the HD format.

Um...how so? The 360 is certainly no graphical slouch, and apart from not having a hd-dvd drive as standard stands up to the PS3 pretty well.

Sure, on paper it's a little bit weaker, but with cross platform games they will be largely identical, and the few exclusive games will look absolutely fantastic being built from the ground up for whatever console they end up on.

Also, while I agree that the level of enthusiasm that is currently around for the Wii will decrease a bit I don't see how on earth you expect it to die soon given that right now it is the most profitable system both hardware and software wise.

If you really want to buy a high definition media player the PS3 is a bargain, but again I would have to question that superiority comment. In fact, I would be willing to bet serious money that in a blind experiment you would not be able to find anyone able to see the difference between a good hd-dvd or blu-ray movie on a 1080p set.

With each system MS has made, the more Japanese developers that have jumped on board. They are still signing new ones, plus Korean developers like Atlus. Capcom is making a lot of XBox exclusives as well, which is nice to see.

The japanese market isn't quite as important as it once was though.

The next Katamari is going to be cross-platform too, woot!

Perhaps so, but I think the PS3's overall capability hasn't been exploited yet a bit like with the PS1 when you compare say for example the original ridge racer with Gran Turismo 1.

Plus I'm just a tad bit anti microsoft and I won't part with my cash with them anyway.

Maybe I was eggagerating (sp?) a bit there but what I mean is that eventually it will reside within a very small gaming niche while M$ and Sony slug it out .

If you really want to buy a high definition media player the PS3 is a bargain, but again I would have to question that superiority comment. In fact, I would be willing to bet serious money that in a blind experiment you would not be able to find anyone able to see the difference between a good hd-dvd or blu-ray movie on a 1080p set.[/quote] [/quote]

I agree that visually both formats are similar but capacity is much better with Blue Ray too and that means bigger games overall on the PS3 in the long term. Plus isn't it much nicer having everything you need all in one console rather than buying a pricey add-on? In fact the Prices at Argos for both a 360 (full system) and the HD player would work out close 20 £400 quid which is not that much cheaper than the PS3 and that is despite it being out in the market earlier than the PS3.

And when it comes to M$ releasing their next console, the PS3 will still be around at a much more affordable price and many people might decide then to make the natural switch to Sony.

No, people will go for the best and brightest.

Disc capacity between blu-ray and hd-dvd is not as big as you think. It is much easier to manufacture hd-dvd discs with more layers, than blu-ray. Yes, a blu-ray single layer disc holds more per layer, but if you can jam 3 layers onto a hd-dvd disc and only 1 or 2 layers on a blu-ray disc, then the hd-dvd disc will hold more. Seems you bought into Sony hype, maybe?

Bigger games does not = better games. You see Oblivion? One regular dvd for that puppy.

As I have said before, I will not use my console to watch movies, even though quite a few people do. Why? Because they scratch discs much easier than actual players do. They run hotter and it is just not good for wear and tear. Especially if I'm sliding a $30 disc into it.

I'm not sure, but most people don't seem to want a HD player as much as they want a console.

Most likely MS's next machine will be DX10 compatible and who knows how locked down it'll be. I think we have quite a few years to even think about it, however.

Here is another hurdle for Sony. The 360 is quite a bit cheaper to develop for at the time being, which is why so many formerly (PS) exclusive companies are making the multi-platform jump. Meaning they develop for the 360 first, then port it to PS. Some multi-platforms are not running as good on the PS3 as they are on the 360, thanks to the PS3 being harder to code for. Which was another mistake Sony made.

They've been bumbling with the PS3 before it was even released. Hopefully they learn a lesson and the PS4 will have more of an impact like the PS2 did.

The PS3 is just an overpriced way of Sony trying to win the high-def format war, and it seems to be working. Too bad it's not doing so well against the 360 or Wii.

The last time I checked, the Wii was comparatively the most successful (profit-wise) during its first 3 or 4 months in the market, followed by the 360, and then the PS3.

The thing about the Wii is that it appeals to older folks as well. I don't think the PS3 or 360 have that demographic covered.

I actually expected the 360 to win, even though I'm a fan of Nintendo. But this time around, Nintendo seems to be doing things right. First and foremost, it was cheap. It also had an innovative new style of gameplay that people actually like. They're actively trying to get M-rated games this time (including GTA4). They're gonna be coming out with Red Steel and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (two of the biggest reasons I'll buy a Wii). There have even been rumors of the Wii being HD-capable in the future (another good reason).

I pretty much expected the PS3 to fail. Sony was taking a loss by selling the consoles at $600? No one wants to buy a console for that much. And to me, it seems like the PS3 is basically just the PS2 with a Blu-Ray drive.

Wha? I haven't heard any rumours of them trying to get GTA4, especially since the Wii plain won't run it. I wouldn't be too surprised to see the Wii get an upgraded version of San Andreas Stories though.

Red Steel was a launch title, and everytime someone buys a copy of that game God kills a kitten. Avoid Red Steel for the love of god.

I read an article about some Nintendo guy talking with Rockstar/Take Two about releasing GTA4 on the Wii. That's all I know.

Why wouldn't it work on the Wii?

Really? Hmm...

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Basically, the Wii simply doesn't have a powerful enough graphics system to push through what GTA4 is cooking. You've got to remember that, graphics-wise, it isn't that much of an upgrade from a GameCube. Nintendo decided to push unique gameplay over graphics this time around.

Also, I'm really not quite sold on the driving capabilities of the Wiimote just yet.

But GTA4 could simply be compressed/downconverted/technobabbled so it works on the Wii, right? I mean, graphics aren't everything. Most games with beautiful graphics usually have shitty gameplay and shitty AI, with a couple of notable exceptions.

To get GTA4 running on Wii would require cutting it down and rebuilding assets, and changing design features to the point where it would be a completely different game.