the air

These days, all we ever hear about on many tech oriented sites is the next console war that begins in less than a week. This is where the Xbox360 finally meets its challengers, the venerable Playstation 3 (debuting 11/17/06) and the rebirth of Nintendo with its Wii (debuting 11/19/06). Now I am no expert on these machines. I don’t have the Xbox360 and I am not getting either system in the near future due to their limited supply. However, I do feel that I come from the casual gamer category. I tend to buy games every now and then and I will play them every now and then. I’m not really into online gaming nor do I have any interest in HD video feeds that the new systems all offer, with the exclusion of the Wii.

As of today, I have an Xbox with about 20 games. In my opinion, that is not alot of games, but I usually only purchase a certain type of game. I tend to play stealth orientated games (e.g. Splinter-Cell series and Hitman), racing games (e.g. Midnight Club series, Project Gotham Racing), and games that encourage Co-Op play. In all honesty, I enjoy playing games that have enormous levels and can be played with up to 4 players on the same team. I like to enjoy playing in a team environment in a large-scale map. I understand that there are game modes that allow for 2 on 2 or something of that sort. However, I prefer to be on a team of 4 playing against 1000 computer AI bots.

The next generation consoles all seem to focus on graphics. What I don’t understand is that graphics are great for eye candy, but they don’t do squat for actual gameplay. If games don’t cater to my tastes, then I will not be interested in buying them. The same fact goes for almost every gamer out there. I tend to focus more on the gameplay than the actual graphics. If you recall, there are numerous games on older systems (e.g. Sega Genesis, Nintendo, and Super Nintendo) that have really good quality gameplay with really poor graphics. Today, most of these games all offer high quaility graphics with unintuitive gameplay.

Another problem I see with the next generation of consoles and their games is the price of the console and the price of the games. The PS3 (Playstation 3) is set to debut with either a US$499 or a US$599 pricetag, depending on which console you choose. To be honest, the only major differences between the two systems are hard drive capacity and wi-fi capability. On the other hand, the Wii will debut at $299 for the core system. There is no other hardware version of the Wii at launch. Let’s not forget the Xbox 360, it debuted with two (2) versions as well. You can find out more about the different versions here. For the most part, the major differences are quite substantial and merit the actual price difference. I think that Sony’s ploy is simply pointless (Why bother offering a larger hard drive when most games won’t even make use of it at launch?). I am certain, however, that Sony does have a good reason to include a larger capacity drive. Let’s move on to the actual pricepoints of the games. Both the Xbox360 and PS3 games will cost in excess of the previous pricepoint of US$49.99. Most Xbox360 games retail for US$59.99 with some at US$69.99. PS3 games can be expected at the same rates as the Xbox360. Now I’m not a big fan of spending lots of money just for one game. I still think that the 50 dollar pricetag was steep. However, I felt that it was fair because with a US$100 gift card or cash, I can pretty much purchase two games with some spare change to complete the deal. However, with the new generation games, I now need to spend close to US$140 just to purchase two games. That is a substantial difference, in my view.

I know that the new consoles offer a plethora of features for their customers to enjoy. I have no doubts in my mind that all three systems will enjoy great success. Who will be the winner? I hate to pick any system over the other. My gut tells me that the ranking of sales will go like this:

1. Xbox 360 because it already has a head start and will be debuting games taking advantage of its true abilities
2. Nintendo Wii because it has a much more consumer-friendly price tag and classically entertaining characters such as Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, etc.
3. Playstation 3 because of its high price-point at both the console and games

However, like I said, don’t bash me because of my opinion. I really do hate to guess which console will win. Most of us will have a much better picture in exactly one year from the release of both the Wii and PS3.

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