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The 360's Position in the Next-Gen War
An anonymous reader wrote to mention a great article on the Elite Bastards site looking at the Xbox 360's positioning in the next-gen market. In the first of a three part article series, the author looks at the lessons Microsoft learned from its first hardware outing, and what he feels the company's strategy will be in the near future. From the article: "Clearly my impression of the Xbox 360 is that it is positioned to compete significantly better in the next gen console race than its predecessor. The difference this time around is that although Microsoft will no longer have the decidedly most powerful console, they also won't have the most expensive console, and believe me, they will compete on price. The Xbox 360s media (DVD) and input device (gamepad) are safe choices and the CPU may be merely adequate, but the GPU is quite potent and should go far in keeping Microsoft's box in the same league as Sony's overall despite the disparity in time to market."
The Launch: Microsoft did a decent job hyping the system, but the launch was, on balance, weak. You had your brief hysteria of $5,000 systems on eBay, but it died down fairly quickly. You had serious supply issues--to the point where it hurt more than helped. You had the whole power supply issue. You had decent games, but no "killer title" that made you want to go out and get it.
Today: The games are still pretty pedestrian--the operative word is "prettier", which will only get you so far. Now that the insanity of the launch period has passed, there isn't much about the XBox 360 that appeals to the average consumer--it's expensive, it has decent games but nothing "must-have", and finally, it's expensive. $350 for the system and $50-60 games is simply too expensive for the casual gamer.
Tomorrow: As Thanksgiving approaches, I'm willing to bet that the 360 hits hard times. Unless they can come up with a bigger hit than Halo, all the chatter is going to be about the Revolution. Nintendo is going to have the luxury of not needing killer games at launch; the new user interface alone will likely drive sales, and if they can put out a few decent games that take advantage of this, they'll be set.
Basically, to your average consumer, there's little reason to get an XBox 360 right now. It's a big enough investment that most people won't consider it as an impulse buy, and it's enough like the last generation of consoles that it won't generate enough interest--again, this is unless they can get a truly must-have game out before, say, September.
The 360's position in the next-gen war is that of the gung-ho kid who vaults out of the trench and bursts ahead of the rest of the charge: he's out front right now and will bask in glory if he can survive--but he's also the first target to come in range.
Or, from another angle: Sony and Microsoft are working hard to field the finest cavalry regiments ever seen on a field of battle. Nintendo is working hard on building a tank.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Clearly my impression of the Xbox 360 is that it is positioned to compete significantly better in the next gen console
Could that be because the Xbox360 actually exists, and isn't just an idea. Does PS3 even have a launch date yet? People keep saying this and that about PS3, but Microsoft actually anticipated their existing product's shelf life accurately, and planned for it. I have been dying for some of the stuff the xbox 360 does, like HD gaming, a consistent online experience, and OEM wireless that comes with the system. Sure, xbox has issues, namely a lot of bugs made it through. But since I'm online they're patched pretty quickly and things are working out pretty well.
I'll take HD gaming now versus something that doesn't have a launch date yet.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Having said that, I think your opinion of what's going to happen in this console race depends on your opinion of Sony. If you think they're gonna have a great launch with tons of titles lined up and in great shape and lots of available consoles and on time this year, then you have to think they're gonna cream Microsoft's anemic launch. If you think Sony is gonna be in the same boat as the 360 with even more complicated components and an even tighter release schedule that might get pushed back, then you probably think it'll be a pretty even battle with maybe a slight edge going either way.
Personally, my bet is that Sony runs into the same problems Microsoft did. I think they sell more consoles, but by then the 360 has a decent amount of games and it's a fairly even race for a year or two till the 360 fades about 6 months earlier than the PS3 does. Then we get the next next gen, and so on, and so on.
The XBox 360 is doing well now. This is unsurprising, as it has no competition at the given moment. The true test for Microsoft and the 360 will be its staying power and ability to compete against the more-powerful, better-backed playstation. Because it had a headstart, the 360 made a good bit of money due to the cool-factor of being the first next-gen console. But the question we have to ask ourselves is "will these graphics even be on par in 3 years?". The answer to that, probably not. I know that as the developers get a feel for the platform the graphics will improve, but they can't outreach the limits of the hardware itself, which frankly are mediocre. When the Playstation relases, I predict that it will have slighly less "burst" profitability, but will have much greater staying power. Sony has traditionally had better backing from game developers, and I don't really see that changing. I was a proud owner of all three consoles of the previous generation. Most of the games I bought for XBox were on other systems as well. I bought them for XBox because it was the most powerful. Now I'll buy them for Playstation because it'll be the most powerful. Gameplay is important, but if you can get the same game on two different consoles, which would you choose. Most people would choose the one with more power.
-BBSchaefer
Personally, I hope that the new power of Next-gen consoles will let game developers explore new ideas in games, an area mostly limited to PCs due to processing power and licensing issues, such as the groundbreaking Garry's Mod, a physics-based sandbox in which you can build mechanical contraptions, vehicles, etc, and make them really work. Hopefully the revamped systems should give game makers room to forge new genres.
I'm a signature virus. Copy me to your signature so I can replicate, and introduce your own mutations so I can evolve.
Talk to game developers and many/most will say that Microsoft has better developer tools, documentation, and assistance.
It's far too early to tell how this generation is going to pan out. That won't generate traffic to any gaming sites, so they have to go off into the realm of mindless conjecture.
So far, the PS3 has been nothing but a smoke and mirrors show. The reason being, Sony needed to do something to blunt the 360 announcement long before the PS3 hardware was ready, so they sent the FUD machine into overdrive and spat out the same drivel they did when trying to kill off the Dreamcast. Not surprisingly, people lapped it right up, despite the previews being little more than mockups and "real time demos" rendered at 1FPS prior to the show and sped up. I'm not saying the PS3 is going to be a disappointment, nor am I saying that it will be comparable to, or lightyears beyond the 360 or Revolution. We simply know far too little substantive information about its capabilities and exactly what its game library will look like.
The Revolution was being heralded as the only good console of this generation - even before there was a single feature announced. Other than the controller and the back-catalog being rereleased for it, we have seen nothing of what it can do or what it will bring to the table.
Let's have this conversation in a few months, after E3.
Oh come on, I've heard this arguement more than a few times, only from slashdot. But the other 98% of the population doesn't even know what a "rootkit" is. And "so much attention" is only relative. It got quite a bit of attention on tech sites, but if it wasn't on NBC Nightly News or on the front of a section of the NY Times, it won't even make a dent in sales. I would say, even if it DID make headline news, you might see a 1% sales drop. Most people use consoles for playing games, not viewing media, anyway, most of what Joe Sumer will be hooked with is fancy graphics, a lot of buzz, and news of must-have games. I have little doubt that Sony will be able to deliver those three things just fine, as it did on their last two releases. So no, the rootkit issues is not going to bite Sony.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Having not bothered with any console since the Atari2600, here is how I view the landscape.
Xbox 360
Pro: Out first, never discount the advantage of getting on shelves first.
Fairly solid design, nothing too daring.
Massive marketing push
Con: Fairly solid design, nothing too daring.
Early mover advantage all but negated by supply issues, Xmas '05 was a bust.
Only a DVD Drive
PS3
Pro: Backward compatibility with PS2 and PS1.
Proven ability to churn out titles appealing to key 16-24yo male demographic.
BlueRay, especially if it wins in the broader next gen DVD war.
Con: Late arrival
???: Cell. If it can be harnessed it will be a major plus, otherwise another Itanic fiasco.
Revolution
Pro: Widest range of software covering the most catagories.
Con: From teh prelim info available it appears to be woefully underpowered.
???: New input system is a total wildcard much like Cell.
I'd say Nintendo will survive this round simply because it will mostly be fighting for ground not coveted by the other two contenders. If the new input system permits new catagories of gaming the others can't port it could gain major ground.
However there really isn't room for both Xbox and the Playstation since they both target the same demographic and neither is likely to be able to slide into the media center/tivo market with their current generation hardware.
If Xbox suffers another lackluster second place finish to Sony it will be hard to convince the instituitional investors who hold vast quantities of Microsoft stock in pension plans to piss away billions more on a third try. Sony on the other hand can probably afford to lose a round and come back with another try so while the pressure is on Sony to deliver a knockout and end the war they probably can better survive a loss while for Microsoft it is probably "win or go home" time. Expect them to realize that and play for keeps, slashing prices at the first hint of erosion in sales, knowing this brief period before PS3 & Revolution launch is their best opportunity to lock in customers.
Democrat delenda est
I was expecting to have more titles available, and it sucks to see long periods of time seperating release dates for the new games. Actually, the only game I'm looking forward to is Burnout that comes out in March. Sure you can play old Xbox games, but I want to play games in full HD.
For MS's sake they should put out more titles soon, because the PS3 will dominate if the Xbox 360 game selection still sucks like it does now.
Now that I think of it, the cause for this bad game selection is probably because of all the nonsense that companies require to make modern games. I mean shit, a symphony orchestra is needed for the sounds. Maybe if the SDK/MS licensing was cheaper, developers that aren't as rich as EA can afford to make/sell games too.