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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, I've been kicking around the idea of getting a 360 for months, now. I was close, but put off by the sticker shock, and decided to hold off for a bit longer. Maybe until a price drop.
A couple days ago, though, I went over to a friend's place; she manages a small EBgames store, and has a 360 and just about every notable game for it. It was just a small get-together, so a bunch of us spent some time browsing through her collection of 360 games. I'm glad I didn't buy one.
Gears of War. Rainbow 6: Vegas. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. FEAR. YAWW2FPS (Call of Duty something, I think). Dead Rising. Saint's Row. Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Dead or Alive 4.
Incidentally, most of these games are the most popular on the 360. Notice something? It's almost entirely FPS. R6:V, CoD and GRAW are your archetypical boring, generic, sequel shovelware. Gears of War and FEAR are both good games in their own right, but considering the company they're in, they don't exactly stand out. Then you have yet another Splinter Cell game, which falls in the same boat: a good game, but reeking of been-there-done-that. Next is Dead Rising, a good game with a few very, very deep flaws, but basically fun, and Dead or Alive 4: an uninspired button-masher fighter that doesn't look like its had its sprites updated in years. Nevermind that the game ought to come with a jar of vaseline, as it's mainly beat-off material for teenagers.
It's not that the 360's game lineup is all that bad, it's just that the console's been out for a year now, and the best game on it is a FPS, on a console that's drowning in FPSes. Yet where are the RPGs? Oblivion and its broken leveling system and litany of cut-and-paste caves/dungeons? Bottom-of-the-JRPG barrel drek like Enchanted Arms (if you're not acquainted with how agonizingly bad this game is, take a look at some of the gameplay videos on Gametrailers)?
If the 360 really has a weakness, its the utter lack of diversity in its games. It's a hell of generic sequelism. That's fine in a launch console, but not a year after release.
That is HIGHLY unlikely, if soully for the reason that no alternate controllers, even first party controllers, ever catch on on a massive scale, aside from slight alterations like the Wavebird (wireless) and XBox S controller (smaller). Even DDR pads are a fairly niche market, when you look at the grand scheme of things: it's justified for basically only one game series. The controller you're talking about would practically require exclusively written games for it... we're not talking Wavebirds and S Controllers, here.
Secondly, why the hell would Nintendo want to give up the ONE THING that makes its console unique and attractive to the public (besides the feeling that you're buying into a company that is actually striving for innovation for the long term)? They'd be pratactically writing their own death sentance, at least in the hardware market. We're looking at a possible leader or strong second place in this coming generation, and you're suggesting they simply throw it away? No, Nintendo's got something to prove: that balls-to-the-walls processing power doesn't automatically make for a good game or a successful console. They could not have done a better job of proving that, so far. It's better for business, it's better for gamers, and it's better for developers, in the long run.
Also, Nintendo spent years developing and honing the Wiimote to get it to the surprisingly usable piece of machinery it is today. The logistical hoops that Sony or Microsoft would have to go through, simply to include precision tracking (plug-in for LED sensor), would be staggering... and let's not even get into the legal reprocusions.
No, Sony and Microsoft will, and should, stick to their guns in maintaining systems that target their prime demographics. I think it's really refreshing to finally see some real separation between consoles, this time around, with huge differences in design philosophy and gameplay expectations. It starts to kinda make all the various consoles in past generations seem redundant.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
About my early doubts about the Wii and non-gamers, I've seen some very impressive things, that make me think Nintendo may just be crazy like a fox. Watching a forty year old stop at a Gamestop in the wall to play Wii sports, and responding with something equivalent to "This is fucking awesome!" and "When are these gonna be on sale?" impressed me very highly. Anecodotal reports of non-gaming girlfriends seizing controllers are also very encouraging.
The next Metal Gear Solid (MGS4) has pretty much already been confirmed for the Xbox 360. Same with GTA, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before DMC makes it's way over there. So yeah, your argument sucks.
I also find it funny how you say you can't have a strong opinion on the PS3 for at least a year, whereas everybody else seems to already have a very strong (positive) opinion on the Wii.
I think the ebay prices pretty much show how this is working out for Sony: PS3s going unsold even at retail, Wiis selling like hotcakes at double retail. Wii accessories selling at triple retail. Throw that in with the fact that Nintendo has put almost three times the amount of Wiis out there compared to the PS3, and you have to throw away the "intentionally limited supply" argument. The only argument that you're left with is that nobody wants a PS3.
10 If nobody wants a system, nobody's going to make software for it.
20 If nobody makes software for it, nobody's going to buy it.
30 GOTO 10.
Sony alone can't make enough decent titles to keep the system afloat.