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Nvidia CEO Talks Next-Gen Consoles
kukyfrope writes "Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia recently shared his thoughts with the San Jose Mercury News about next-gen consoles, claiming that developing a chip for the 360 was too expensive and that the inclusion of a Blu-ray player will help the console last for 10 years. Huang also predicts that the 360 cannot afford to be a DVD-only system by Christmas 2007, likening the 360-DVD vs PS3-Blu-ray battle to the Dreamcast-CD vs PS2-DVD battle. 'The first PlayStation had a CD-ROM drive. The PlayStation 2 had DVD. It makes no sense for the PlayStation 3 to use DVDs. To postpone it by a few months so they could include Blu-ray was a master stroke. When that comes out, it's going to look so much more advanced than last-generation game consoles,' Huang said."
Doesn't Nvidia make the graphics chip for the PS3, but not the 360? Isn't that a bit like Firestone saying that Chevies are better than Fords because Fords use Goodyear tires, but the Chevies come with Firestone?
My issue with this article is that it assumes that the winner of the next-gen console war will be largely based on which console comes out on top as the graphics powerhouse between the PS3 and the 360. The fact that the PS3 has Blu-Ray and the 360 has the pedestrian DVD format is not going to swing buyers to Sony's side in and of itself. What will contribute to the success of the respective consoles will be the same thing (and arguably only thing) that has ever mattered when it comes to video games: the games themselves. Graphics will only take a console as far as they are able to make games that people want to play. The only thing that movitates anyone to go out and drop $XXX on a console is the fact that there is at least one game on it that they HAVE to play. I think that dispite all of the clamouring over prices and graphics power, in the buyers mind it will eventually come down to "do I want to play Halo 3 or Metal Gear Solid 4?" (or whatever the must have exclusive games end up being)