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PS3 and Wii — Head To Head
1up has a piece looking at the Wii vs. the PS3, running down the particulars on graphical power, online capabilities, launch titles, and control scheme. For the most part, they're siding with the PS3: "Traditionally, Nintendo's never been much for online gaming (the GameCube had two online games&ever), but Wii appears poised to finally bring Mario and Co. into the multiplayer arena. Wii will use a modified version of the DS' Wi-Fi Connection software to facilitate online matchmaking. (Most likely, you'll only be able to play against players who give you 'friend codes' first, just like with the DS.) Like the PS3, the Wii will offer online gaming free of charge."
And I'll be lined up with five teens who are dying to get a Wii on Sunday - none of them are interested in getting a PS3, so in the end, the Wii wins.
It's the games.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If I was going to buy a console exclusively based on online play I would get an Xbox 360. I'm going to get a Wii because I want to play fun games with my wife and kid.
Also, the article talks about the promising lineup of 2007 PS3 not 2006 PS3 and then compares it to the lineup of 2006 Wii not 2007 Wii. Therefore, after comparison you can only declare PS3 the winner.
Am I the only one that feels this article is too biased or unfair to the Wii?
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
I think this is all depending on who you ask, really. The Wii's whole approach was to appeal to other types of people than hardcore gamers, and it looks like the PS3's whole lineup is for hardcore gamers. So, it's a little bit like comparing apples and oranges, I think.
.. because that way there'll be less sweary kids on the 360's Live service. I'm still on my free month and given how many annoying trash-talking kids there are, I probably won't be buying a year's subscription to the service. I know you can mute them, but you still have to run into them first to know who they are, and rep doesn't help much. It'd be interesting to see how Sony and Nintendo tackle this. Nintendo in particular have a reputation as being family friendly. Imagine the outcry there'll be when parents discover little billy has been called a 'flaming cocktard' by some high-school kid.
Nope. All it really says is: "We (the author(s)) are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY excited about the PS3. Here's some boilerplate stuff about the Wii. See how the PS3 is cool?"
I'm glad they're excited, but they should probably be more upfront about it rather than pretending to have journalistic objectivity. A better solution might be to pit a couple different authors (with two different opinions) against each other. It would make for a more interesting read, at least.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
That's strange, I remember playing Mario Kart in multiplayer mode, with friends, in the same living room. Oh, and I had Super-Smash-Brothers Melee too, multiplayer, same living room.
Heck, Nintendo has been making multiplayer games decades ago with Mario Bros.
Funny... that's not what I heard...After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
You have to keep in mind that, as one other Slashdotter just said, 1up is comparing apples and oranges.
...And what's this about "extra functionality?" The PS3 plays PS2 and PS1 games?
The PS3 takes the cake with graphics because that was their goal. The best graphics hardware was not Nintendo's goal.
The Wii takes the cake with controls because that's what Nintendo's goal was... Sony instead chose to remain somewhat conservative by continuing to use its tried-and-true PSX controller layout.
So of course each one is going to win in each of its given categories, because it's the opposite of what the other company wanted to do with their respective console.
NEWS FLASH: The Wii is capable of playing games from NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, TurboGrafix, Genesis, and probably more...
And the PS3 can play Blu-Ray movies? Woop-dee freakin' doo. I don't know about everybody else, but I'm going to buy a gaming console to play games. If I want to watch movies, I'll buy a movie player.
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One thing I do not understand is why Friend Codes are so hated. They do exactly what Nintendo wants. Keep their kid safe image. With friends codes, you only play with the yahoos who you KNOW PHYSICALLY. There isn't much chance of getting caught with a predator when he doesn't know your friend code or name. There is no chat, no way to get heavy breathing over the DS. It allows friends to play and parents to feel safe that little Jill can be playing with her friends over the internet and they don't have to worry about looking to censor it. It works PERFECTLY for kids. Friends can play friends and the wierdos don't know who you are. And yes, I know there are web sites that allow you to put friends codes out there. But, you have to do that yourself and if you are doing that, you can use a computer and a chat room too. At that point, a DS game is the least of the parents' worries.
One Token Ring to Rule them All, One Search Engine to Find Them, One WAN to bring them in, and TCP/IP Bind them...
It's not a competition between just the Wii and the PS3. In fact I would say that there are very few people who are deciding between those two systems. The PS3 and the Wii are just too far apart. You are willing to pay for high definition graphics or you are not. You either want the traditional controller scheme or you love the idea of the Wii controller. I would suggest that the competition is Wii vs. Xbox 360 and PS3 vs. Xbox 360.
First, the people who buy a PS3 before Christmas are going to be hardcore Playstation fans. The PS3 is in such short supply and costs so much, it will not be a casual purchase. Even if you're rich, you will have to track one down or pre-order it. The Wii is half the price of the PS3 and there will be an ample supply of them because Nintendo doesn't have production problems.
A price sensitive gamer will ignore the PS3. The Xbox 360 will become more affordable once Microsoft cuts it's price. Even with a price cut, the Xbox 360 will be more expensive than the Wii. But it won't be twice the price. Meaning that someone who is willing to pay for a Wii doesn't have to pay that much more for an Xbox 360. It comes down to consumer choice.
A gamer looking for high definition graphics will be comparing the PS3 and the Xbox 360. The Wii is limited to 480p, so someone who wants HD will ignore it. A gamer must decide whether they want to pay $100 to $200 extra for the PS3. There are certainly Xbox 360 games with high quality graphics. We will have to wait and see how PS3 games look.
I think that Xbox 360 demand is pretty high in the US. I only say this because there are deals being offered in Canada that are not being offered in the US. Maybe Americans tend to spend more on Christmas than Canadians.
I agree with you. However, this day an age, journalism, with the advent of the online medium, is shifting towards opinion pieces than objective journalism. One only has to look to traditional media to see biased reporting, on many levels.
I personally attribute this to the fact that I think people are drawn to news of scandal and such in much the same say they're drawn to 'negative' news. It's more enjoyable to talk about. Afterall, why else would 'reality TV' be popular, rarely see 'good news', the explosion of online journals (blogs), etc. Women have always known this. They've been watching Soap operas forever. =P It's all about the water cooler gossip. It's not fun to debate something if everyone agrees!
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Agreed- the graphics seem to get you in the door. I spend maybe a few rare minutes observing the graphics and it tends to be during the lull in the gameplay... ie- as I'm wondering around looking for a secret item or some such.
The power glove flopped because it was an expensive add-on and there were basically no games designed for it, so it was a glove that had to somehow act like a Nintendo controller. I never had one (see price), but from what I heard it was fun to play Punch-Out with and that was about it. The NES was really not a great system to try innovative motion-sensing control schemes on, considering how few NES games even used all 8 binary game pad directions. Funny, because even a decade later I was reading about hobbiests praising the power glove for actually being a pretty good glove that could do things like detect how far you had curled each finger that other similarly priced gloves couldn't do. So basically total overkill.
The Wiimote is built into the console and is the foundation of Wii gameplay, is cheaper if you want extras, and is matched to a system capable of doing something useful with the nuanced input it is getting. I completely agree that it's appropriate to wait and see how it feels after using it a while before passing judgement good or bad. I just disagree that history gives me reason to doubt.
P.S. speaking of failed Nintendo add-on controllers, I don't hear many people mention whatever the hell they called that ridiculous light-bazooka for the SNES. Seriously, it was the size of a small shoulder-fired rocket launcher and was intended to be held the same way. I don't know what the hell that was about. A relative accidentally bought me a game that needed it, so I never played it, making it only a slightly better gift than Donkey Kong 3 was.
The enemies of Democracy are
Yeah. I had my suspicions when I read the summary on Slashdot, where it said that the DS only allowed you to play online with people who's friend codes you had. I guess I was just hallucinating when I was playing Mario Kart and Metroid with completely random strangers. Anything that incorrect is bound to be backed up by further nonsense.
There are a lot of people that do want more than Friend Codes. They want a true matchmaking experiencing, without canned chat, which is what's been available on Xbox Live, PC multiplayer, PS2/PS3 online service, etc. for years.
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As we all know, though, that opens up a huge can of worms: griefers, immaturity, and predators. Obviously it's not an easy thing to solve. But I wouldn't say Friend Codes solves it either, since it basically eliminates the features many people want. It's like cutting off a finger, when a bandaid will do.
I think what a lot of us would like is a Friend Codes system for the kids, and then something else for the rest of us. That's what other systems do. Xbox Live does have a ton of features to protect Kids during on-line play, it's just that most of us don't know about it (I imagine most Slashdotters don't have kids yet). Worse yet, many parents may not know they exist. That's one thing Nintendo could do a lot better, but instead, it appears that they've chosen to treat everyone like a child.
Personally, I don't mind that too much, since I'm not a big fan of multiplayer in general. However, there are millions that do care
-- jchenx
The PS3 and Wii are aimed at two different markets - the PS3 is definitely not aimed at the cost-conscious gamer (why buy an HD-ready system if you can't afford HDTV) and the Wii is never going to please the people who want high-end, graphic intensive games, so comparing them feature-for-feature is useless. People who can't afford a PS3 won't get one. People who aren't interested in a Nintendo won't get one. People who can afford a PS3 may also get a Wii. For most people, it isn't a binary decision, so why the illusion of controversy?
Please stop linking to 1Up. I come to Slashdot to read interesting articles (haha), not the ridiculous grade-school crap that 1Up consistently posts.
I'm getting sick of this "kid friendly" thing. Sure, there are some Nintendo games that are going to be for kids, as there will be on the 360, and PS3. There will also be some "hardcore" gorefest games on the Wii, though in a lower proportion than to the other consoles (RE4 on GC?). But then again the only games that make the PS2 worthwhile to me happen to be the more kid friendly ones, like katamari, where the emphasis is more on fun than how many polys you can render gibs in. Most violent games are not actually for adults, they are for the 16-30 crowd, mature players realize that they were drawn to gaming for fun, pure and simple, and not pure violence.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I know you can still do random/skill-based matchmaking. But missing the actual communication functionality is crucial to a lot of people. As I said before, I personally am fine with a canned chat experience, since I'm not a big fan of multiplayer in general. That said, a lot of people do want that experience. While it's not a problem for me or you, it's still a problem.
The question is going to be how significant that really is. While there's 5 million (random guess) people that want full-featured communication in their multiplayer, there may be 20 million that actually prefer the canned chat model (or just don't care). In that case, then Nintendo will look like geniuses, in finding out what the users really want. Or they could be totally wrong.
I should point out, though, that there are many games where canned chat really degrades the communication. Team-based FPS and shooters come to mind. There's only so much you can communicate using canned messages, which is why voice over Xbox Live was such a huge hit when it first came out. There's also a reason why software such as TeamSpeak and Ventrilo are becoming so much popular in PC multiplayer games (most notably MMORPGs). Nintendo can simulate some of that, by making users just add more and more people as their friends, but you can tell that this is not their preferred model.
-- jchenx
and
Obviously, they don't want to have anything that is not the standard video game experience since the 2600. These authors blow off all of Nintendo's main points in producing this system, price, fun factor, new controller, going after the 99% of the population that isn't into "OMG! Boom Headshot!" FPS fragfest games.
Elsewhere on 1up, I read a story about the depth of the Zelda game. After ten hours the reviewer had a lot to more to go, and he didn't have carpal tunnel from using the remote. Every game isn't going to require you to be standing up, waving your arm all over the place, but smaller movements made sitting down comfortably.