The Console War
Seeing as the PS3 has been released in Europe I figured that now's a good a time as any to see what your thoughts on the different consoles are. Here's mine just to start us off:
The Xbox 360 Good old Microsoft have done well so far. By releasing their console early they could have done a Dreamcast but instead it looks like they've got themselves a healthy lead. They've got a good library of exclusive titles with more to come (Mass Effect alone might convince me to buy a 360) and they've got a user base that would have any developer salivating. I'm no way saying that their lead is insurmountable but I think the last year and news of the future is going to hold them in good stead for a long time to come. The recent announcement of the new Elite system won't make much difference I think. The Wii I appreciate what Nintendo have done, release a console that isn't particularly powerful but will sell itself on its low low price point. Seems to be working. So far... Sure, it's selling well but I have serious doubts about its long term future. As the games on the other two consoles become more and more impressive people are going to start wondering why they should bother wasting their time with a Wii. I think Nintendo's chronic problem of not being able to find enough third party support is going to hound them into this generation and once people start getting worked up about games like the next Final Fantasy the poor little console that (almost) could will fall by the wayside. I think Nintendo will still make money from this generation but I don't really see them as a major contender. The Playstation 3 Oh deary me Sony, you've really blown it this time haven't you? Well, maybe... The PS3's bad press seems incessant these days. People are constantly asking themselves why Sony are forcing them to pay for a Blue Ray player that they don't even want and even developers like Capcom are giving them a kick in the nuts by releasing Devil May Cry 4 simultaneously on the 360. On the other hand this is a console that is built to last. As the months progress people with HDTVs will start to see the power of the PS3 and in the long term people might even be happy that it has a Blue Ray player. I think the next year or so is going to be rough for Sony but if they can brave it out and still sell enough units then the PS3 has real potential to have the long lasting power that the PS2 had (and still has). In conclusion I think the winner of this war will either be the PS3 or the 360. At the moment on paper it looks like the 360 is the more solid choice but I wouldn't underestimate the PS3's long term staying power. Especially when the price cuts start coming in I think people will be more and more put off by the Wii. |
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Pc games are sooo much better.. you cant put games likes RTS, MMORPG or turn based on that without it being crap!
However you can put racing, sims and fighiting games on a PC and it will still be good. I Dont see the point on expending hundreds of dollars just to get a slightly better image :( |
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The Wii will continue to do well for a little while longer as a novelty / party game type device. In the same way the PS1 appealed (for whatever reason) to a new bunch of people who hadn't been interested in gaming, so has the Wii (albeit in a different way). I don't like the Wii at all, but I suspect Nintendo has done enough for the console to be remembered as a reasonable success.
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Nintendo has shown the way with Wii sports & Zelda, but besides those 2 games I haven't really seen much good Wii games... Worst of them has to be Far Cry: Vengeance though, very sad to see a good game like far cry on pc be linked to a piece of crap like that. Splinter Cell also didn't look vry good on the Wii. |
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Well, which Wii games have you tried? Personally, I found Red Steel to be quite brilliant (for a launch game, mind you), and Kororinpa certainly showed how great the control is for that kind of game (way better than Monkeyball, though with stupid camera angels). Further, WarioWare was great, and Excite Truck hopefully gets a sequel which can be great, as the original had lots of potential, though poorly exectuted (another rushed title). As it is, all the titles out for Wii has been rushed (with the exception of Zelda, but that's a GameCube title), and the truly great titles wont be out for a while yet. Personally I'm putting my money on Metroid Prime 3 - the two pervious titles in this series were great, and I rate Metroid Prime as one of my 3 favourite games of all time (along with StarCraft and Metal Gear Solid).
As for FarCry on Wii: Yes it's truly horrid. However, all the FarCry: Vengeance (the console titles of the series) titles are horrible, this one is only the worst of the lot. Oh well, there you go with Ubisoft developing the game instead of CryTech. Anyway, back to the OP: 360: The 360 haven't really sold that well - it has sold relativley well, yes, as could be expected, but tbh the sale numbers are too low to call it a success - not a failure, but no great success either. That said, the console only became worthwhile after the software upgrade in... september, was it? The Live system is aweosme, and is their biggest selling points - it seems the 360 doesn't have as many big series as the PS3 (though a lot of big games). By opening the money bag and buying games like Devil May Cry, GTA4 (and MGS4 rumored to come to the 360 simultanously) they might catch up with Sony. PS3: I haven't tried it a lot yet, but to say that Sony has had a lot of blunders lately would be an understatement. However, their brand is still very strong in the average consumer, and I think they'll still dominate the market - Sony at any less than 50% of the market seems absurd. However, they need to straighten out their internet support as well as other software bugs. To be honest, it's a bit unfair: The PS3 is compared to what the 360 is like now, while the 360 has been out for a year. If you compare the PS3 to what the 360 was like at launch they're fairly even. In a year's time I think the PS3 will be a great console - but no need to spend money on it now. First generation builds are usually buggy anyway. Then the Wii: The Wii isn't in direct competition to PS3/360. They're aiming for a different market, different games, and they are doing it great. I think the Wii will be a lot of fun, though it will be the smallest of the three, and not at all have the same amount of hardcore games or hardcore gamers - as always with Nintendo, really. The "chronic" third party support problem shouldn't apply at all, though. As it is, both EA and Ubisoft are extremely positive to the Wii, and I think we can expect a lot of interesting exclusive titles on the Wii from these two (not to mention other developers). |
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They all look shit, tbh.
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I don't think you're analysing the way things are, and have been, particularly well which, irrespective of any prior views I had on the topic, leads me to disregard your comments. The poor third party support, for example, on Nintendo consoles could be down to a few things, such as the low install base (something which no longer applies), unique data format (which also no longer applies) and expensive dev kits (which no longer applies). If you look at the sheer number of games which are coming out for the Wii, the first year past the launch has more games in the equivilent time period than the N64 and the Gamecube combined, whilst the console itself has been selling out in every market, whereas the PS3 and the X360 have failed to reach their targets by fairly significant amounts - if you ignore the Sony spin that selling fewer consoles is somehow better, which would probably go down with the Sony spin that the PS2 could render Toy Story in real time and other such garbage. The one thing I'd say that the Wii lacks right now is a truly sophisticated use of the Wiimote. It's not in as poor a position, game wise, as the DS was in its opening year, it definitely needs an equivilent of Nintendogs. A port like Twilight Princess doesn't really cut it. |
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you could just do the sensible thing and download any game thats worthwhile and not pay anything though
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Having said that, this argument only really applies to the cutting edge FPS games. I could certainly play Neverwinter Nights 2, for example, on my old XP2500+/Radeon 9700 Pro system from 2002 - although I will admit, that cost a few hundred pounds more than $600. Give it 6 months, though, and you'd be in the right ballpark, and closer to the 3 year estimate anyway. |
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As for your point about PC games being better than console games, I agree with you. I was only talking about the cost issue. EDIT: Quote:
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*I haven't played P:T yet, although my copy from ebay arrived today so that will change soon |
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I found it to be less good than either KOTOR2 or Planescape: Torment, and lacking the scope of BG2. Still pretty good, but it suffers from being in full 3D spinniovision, as you can't represent the same variety of characters, items and locations without upping your art requirement enormously.
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I thought the actual dialogue was poor in quality compared to it, and with a wordy RPG that's where it lives and dies.
And hack and slash games are pretty rubbish anyway. |
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Consoles are the biggest crap in gaming history. I can't imagine playing games without mouse and keyboard. Imagine FPS with joypad :rolleyes:
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Works pretty well in Goldeneye, if you set it to the 1.2 controls rather than 1.1.
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* Probably. Goldeneye had very simplistic physics and was extremely slowpaced without any real vertical element, presumably because thats the only way you could make it playable with a joypad. As such, being able to use a mouse/keyboard wouldnt be as much of an advantage as it would in a more complex game like quake, but imo it would be a big enough advantage to let an average mouse/keyboard player beat a good joypad player. In any case, the idea of someone playing rail arena with a joypad on a vertical map is crazy, and thats before you start to bring in other fundamentally 'unjoypad' things like bunnyhopping and proper weapon binds. |
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Look what I found:
http://nexgenwars.com/ Now we can see at a glance how well each console is doing. Super! I have no idea how accurate those figures are by the way. |
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There was also very little difficulty (if you used the correct control system anyway) in moving to more vertically orientated maps in Perfect Dark, with the c-buttons and joystick being pretty analagous to the keyboard and the mouse in terms of usage. Furthermore, I find "proper weapon binds" to be much easier to use than having to flick through weapons, given the deterministic nature of the former and the relative nature of the latter (ie, when I pressed mouse-4 in UT2K4 I'd always get the flak cannon, whereas cycling forward two weapons in Goldeneye gives a different result based on what weapon I am using and what weapons I am carrying. The selection system in Perfect Dark is more analagous to weapon binds, anyway). |
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Assuming you don't play with autoaim on, of course, but that removes a lot of the skill of the enterprise. The movement is a lot simpler, as is the vertical element of the maps (which I believe I've commented upon before in this thread), although the latter of these is certainly fixed to a great degree in Perfect Dark, which, aside from the framerate problems, is a superior game. |
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Quake is a completely different game to Goldeneye, Nod. How can you try to compare the two? It's like comparing Counterstrike to Quake (also mouse+keyboard).
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There are certain types of games which consoles are intrinsically unsuitable for (eg FPS, but also RTS games and RPGs, or anything else where only having a handful of available buttons for binding commands is going to piss you off eventually), just like PCs are generally terrible at fighting and driving games. |
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You said it was impossible to have higher levels of skill in Goldeneye. This isn't true at all, as you'd know if you'd played with different people.
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