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."

Comments

I have to disagree

[HappySqurriel]

"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."

I don't know what will happen in total sales, but I expect that the so-called "Hardcore" gamer will likely purchase multiple systems and will be very attracted to the Wii because the nature of the titles it recieves; what I mean is that many of the so-called "Hardcore" gamers will buy pretty much any piece of hardware that has enough exclusive games, and pretty much all Wii games are exclusive due to the nature of the console.

The majority of gamers are not hard-core and are no where near as big of graphics whores as some people assume; gaming is probably not their only form of entertainment so they're probably less likely to spend too much money on it. The price of the Wii is probably very attractive to them, but they also haven't played enough games to care about how stagnant the industry has become.

Re:I have to disagree

[Das Modell]

The PS3 will win over the hardcore gamers who have to have the fastest, most amazing machine available.

People who buy a console because of its hardware are not hardcore gamers, they're assclowns. Hardcore gamers are primarily concerned with games, as the term implies.

Ok, this wasn't terribly on topic but I had to get it off my chest.

Re:I have to disagree

[twistedsymphony]

I couldn't agree more... I consider myself to be a hardcore gamer... I own every console from the last generation, and every console for the generation before that, I bought a 360 on launch day, I bought a Wii 2 days after launch... I have about 20-40 for each of the last gen console, I have about 20 Xbox 360 games already (only 3 Wii games). My Xbox 360 gamerscore is in the top 1500 world wide.

...and I have absolutely ZERO interest in the PS3. The price is ridiculous. I hated the controller shape back when they introduced it in 1995, and there aren't any exclusive games availble worth buying the console for. Not to mention with all the bad PR the exclusives are going cross-platform faster then you can say "dropping eBay prices".

If I really wanted the biggest and best gaming machine, I'd buy a PC.

As far as I'm concerned the only thing a PS3 is good for right now, is a cheap Blu-Ray player. But at the same time you'd have to convince yourself that it's even worth buying any blue laser disc player at all, nevermind the Blu-Ray over HD-DVD.

Re:I have to disagree

[DarkJC]

Available now, or available later? We all know that unless Sony drops the ball they're getting the Final Fantasy's, the Metal Gear Solids, and the Devil May Crys. They very well could drop the ball and all the amazing exclusives they've secured for their previous consoles will go flying to the 360, but I'm not counting on it. Honestly I think it's impossible to have a very strong opinion on the PS3 until it's been released for a year.

Considering you're a self professed hardcore gamer, you should know that the PS3 DOES have stuff going for it other than just Blu-ray.

Re:I have to disagree

[ActiveNick]

The only real benefit of the XBox 360 is that it was out first and was a little cheaper than the PS3. Excuse me, but have you tried Xbox Live? Every reviewer from any site agrees that Microsoft has the best online act compared to PS3 or Wii (which has no online gaming support yet).

Microsoft has proven that they can design a solid online offering, providing centralized friends lists, voice, chat, messages, easy matchmaking, really cool and innovative (as well as retro) games on XLA, coutnless downloads (that work in the background) and more. The PS3 forces each developer to provide their own online support or demand that gamers subscribe to a third-party service.

Online support on a console does not mean slapping on a badly integrated browser (every time I try to surf on my PSP I want to blow my brains out), it means seamless online gaming. We live in a day and age where people get connected for everything. From YouTube to MySpace, World of Warcraft to Instant Messaging, people do not want to stay alone at home, disconnected and secluded. Xbox Live brings gamers together, and that's the ace in the sleeve of the Xbox strategy, especially when paired with Live Anywhere which loops in the windows gamers too. Sony had a year to get their online act together and they have learned nothing.

I could cite many other reasons why the 360 will impress and endure, including community offerings using XNA, a non-Trojan horse HD-DVD drive, amazing non-Halo exclusives like Mass Effect, Lost Planet, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, but to me, Xbox Live carries a lot of weight on its own.

Yes, I am a huge Microsoft & Xbox 360 fan (although I also own a PSP and will buy a Wii as soon as I find one), and Microsoft might not beat Sony's numbers in this generation, but one thing is for sure, both the Xbox 360 and the Wii will eat a huge chunk off Sony's 70% market share.

'game designer' AKA former EB sales clerk

[Anonymous Coward]

There are actual console developers with insight into the race between the PS3 and Wii, the problem is that anyone with an actual worthwhile knowledge is too busy actually making games.

So instead we get the worthless ramblings of the console dev world's deadweight:

'game designers' aka level monkeys
producers
testers ...

Re:PS3 vs Wii

[HappySqurriel]

The Wii appears to have one fundamental problem now that I've been around multiple people who have the system, including myself. The novelty wears off pretty quickly. For some people it takes only a few minutes, for others maybe a couple of weeks. But it seems like everyone has a moment where the Wii goes from 'amazing and revolutionary system with a controller that has unlimited possibilities' to 'eh, just a GameCube with a pointer for a controller that doesn't really work very well for most games'.

I'll try to remember that to get people to stop asking me to bring my Wii to their Christmas party ... "Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll says that the Novelty wears off pretty quickly, so I don't think I should bring it over."

So far I have not seen anyone play with my Wii and not be immediately engaged. Honestly, from what I have seen, the novelty of shiny graphics wears out far faster than the Wiimote does; I've seen crowds gater for 5 minutes to check out the graphics of the XBox 360/PS3 only to disperse immediately to do something better with their time.

Most people don't care all that much about graphics when they're enjoying the game they're playing; in fact if you're enjoying the game you will probably not be paying too much attention to any of the graphical effects that are happening.

Re:Wii for the win?

[TemporalBeing]

I think it is interesting that everyone seems to be assuming that the fight for first/second is between the Wii and whichever of the other two win out. In the article above as well as the other slashdot comments already posted there is a base assumption that the Wii is going to do quite well. It is as if everyone is acknowledging that the Wii already has a certain segment of the market sewn up and that gives the advantage in the three way battle for the rest of it. Now, that could be completely wrong, but I think it is very interesting to see that unspoken assumption in so much of what I read.

I am really not surprised - but then again, I am very much in the camp of Nintendo will take the lead, and Microsoft & Sony will duke it out for second. Why? Because Nintendo realized that the market is not the 10 percent of gamers that make up nearly 100 percent of the hard core gamer market - they realized that there is another 90 percent of the market that is just not tapped - from the kindergarten kids to the elderly - not just the kids in their late teens and early twenties.

The Wii was made to reach all gamers, and be good enough for the hard core games but not with top notch specs. They're pulling from their backlog (which as registered will be larger than PS+PS2+PS3+xBox+xBox360 combined as, if I remember the statements right, they could release titles daily and go on for a century and still have titles to release) and adding new stuff that is truly innovative, fun, and entertaining.

I'll get a Wii - heck, even my wife wants to get me one so that we can play it together and have a lot of fun. We've been playing my old 2nd generation NES (the SNES form-factor styled NES) for quite a while now and love it. And with titles like ExciteTruck and and backwards compatibility, I'm all for the Wii.

So if anyone ever wonders why Wii is being thought to be in 1st place - it's because Nintendo did the job, and did it right. They remembered who their real market was and made a product for that market. Finally - the world can have fun gaming again, and it won't be on a PS3 or xBox 360.