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360 vs. PS3 vs. Wii - The Designer's Perspective
Gamasutra is running a piece today written by Ernest Adams, a frequent contributor to the site and an amusingly opinionated game designer. He writes to weigh in on the console war debate from the perspective of a game designer. He runs down the usual list of pros and cons for each machine, and then digs into the most creative aspects of each machine. Finally, lays out what he sees as the end result of this hardware generation: "So who, at the end of the day, will be the also-ran in this generation of consoles? On the global scale, I'd say it could well be neither the PS3 or the Wii, but the Xbox 360. The PS3 will win over the hardcore gamers who have to have the fastest, most amazing machine available. The Wii will skim off the younger players and those who don't have as much money to spend. Both have the advantage of being made in Japan, so they'll crowd the Xbox right out of that market. In the US and Europe, it's harder to say, but I see the Xbox's early start as more of a liability than a benefit."
So in summary, Microsoft, I don't care what you have to do, but get lots more top quality games out there. Both original titles, and Live classics. Steal from Sony's back catalog as much as possible.
First off, my response is in no means authroritve. I only know 10 designers, and know their feelings, I also work at a studio of over 100 people in the game industry. That being said my "research" is more valid then Ernest Adams for a couple reasons. The main one is that most of the people I've discussed this with don't give a simple answer like "PS3 will win because it's more powerful" which is a flat out cop out. Or assumes you believe that buyers are morons who don't notice a 200 dollar price tag differential with out a 200 dollar perfomance differential. Only a few people bought the Neo Geo, and remember that was over "4" times more powerful then the other systems (at 3 times the cost) Hint. The Corvette, isn't oversold by Lamborgini Diablos.... Why?
The prevalant view is that no one is going to lose this round. At least not drop out. If someone does it's Sony, pure and simple. They are not turning a profit, don't have a good starting position, their company is in ruins and looking to cut a lot of budget, and the system is asking for more commitment at both ends then the other two. In addition their "Entertainment center" idea is just flat going to fuck them, because unless people constantly buy games, they would have been better off just selling Blu-ray. That being said, they will sell a LOT of systems, the problem is how many games will the sell. No Xbox Live, and other Microsoft developer helpers hurts them. The motion controller is also difficult to work with and their processor is crap for a developer. It's full potential won't be reached not because it's so powerful but because it's layed out in such a poor style. A 360 can get full potential by any programmer who knows about multithreading, GPU vs. CPU, and simple optimization. You might not get direct control of the hardware but in these days no one really wants it. Why does renderware sell? Because it controlled the hardware, not the programmer.
The 360 does a lot to help the programmer, and that's a big step, from match making, to networking code, to Directx, the programmer is put at ease. Porting a game to the 360 is a lot easier then to the PS3. That being said, what's important is sales and not developer's feelings. The point I'm bringing up here, is that the 360 is developer friendly, and with the big inroads that Blue dragon has made in a certain foreign market, Sony might have some issues. But this only talks about games. So let's look at current system sells.
Ps3s will sell in Japan of course, but the fact I've walked into 3 stores in the last 3 days, and seen PS3s in them isn't speaking highly of what sony has done. The fact that people are returning ps3 mainly because they can't sell them on Ebay speaks of intent to buy versus intent to resell. Yes those systems might not last long, but Wiis are selling out instantly with over four times the quanities already hitting stores.
Again is this important? No, This is just discussing what the trends to today is. So what's the prime goal. Well I'll explain who "Wins" The winner is the one who makes the most money and the most units. Note that this is NOT the same person, but the true winner the one you should care about but don't is the one who makes the most money. They will definatly continue to the next round.
The 360 has almost 10 million units out there right now. That's a shit load of units, but in reality it is far from insurmountable for Sony to come back from. The extra year has given Microsoft a good lead. Great. On the other hand Sony is having trouble breaking 1 million, and Wii is probably going to get 2-4 in the next 3 monthes. The 360 has exclusive titles, as does the Wii. Sony has "announced" certain titles, but dates are getting fuzzy, and exclusiviness is being called into question. Sony has lost a couple. However They still claim to have the big 2 (MGS, and Final Fantasy) and after FFXII's big launch, that's good however looking at the other exclusives they've had one can notice I didn't meantion stuff like Assassin'