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

Xbox 360 No Longer Relevant

[Anonymous Coward]

While the race between the Wii and PS3 is not obvious right now as to who will come out on top, it is safe to say the 360 is no longer relevant. It is selling to the same Xbox demographic as the first system. No one who is a Nintendo or Sony fan has any desire to buy a 360 outside of people with enough disposable income to buy everything.

* Massive and unprecedented hardware defects
* Weak graphics - low framerates, screen tearing, texture filtering problems, and sub-720p games(the two big 360 graphic games PGR3 and GoW have to rely on bogus marketing shots to sell)
* Ridiculous online fees - no one but hardcore Xbox fans are willing to waste 50 dollars every year
* Joke backwards compatibility
* Miserable library of games - Shooters, shooters,shooters...
* Gimped storage - no next gen disc format - and the clunk and expensive HD-DVD add on that can't even be used for games

Blah, what a mess.

Not to say I told you so.. but..

[The Living Fractal]

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

Oh, great. The hardcore portion of the market. What is this, 5-10% of the market, if that?

The Wii will skim off the younger players and those who don't have as much money to spend.

Again, what a tremendously huge portion of the market. Maybe check the gamer demographic to see who buys most consoles... You might be surprised at the average age. It's not 13.

Both have the advantage of being made in Japan, so they'll crowd the Xbox right out of that market.

Again.. right out of the huge Japanese market. The one that Microsoft is obviously depending on for survival. Or.. wait.. no.

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 can't find a single reason this statement makes sense except that it means the 360 isn't the newest thing out there... and some people want the newest thing out there. And guess what, that means they already have a 360 because not too long ago, it WAS the newest thing out there. And now they'll see the problems with their PS3 and that the graphics aren't much better and wonder why they ever bought the 360.

BTW, you can purcahse a 360 HD-DVD player and use it on your PC. It's $200. Or you can buy a PS3 and play Blu-Ray movies for 45 minutes before the system hangs. And there's no firmware update that will fix the hardware problems. Also, go ahead and feel free to be all warm and fuzzy when you find out that your return/replacement turnaround is months and months.

Not to say I told you so.. but the 360 is succeeding right now. In a year, maybe not so much. But by then Microsoft will have firmly seated itself in the console market. Something nobody thought possible, or at least many people didn't, not too long ago. Except me, and maybe a few others.

TLF

TLF