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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 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.
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
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.
This article is useless rhetoric about the "console wars". At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who has the best graphics or the best kind of control system. What matters is what you like to play, and which console will give you that. The people who want to play the games that only the PS3 offers will buy the PS3, regardless of what Nintendo and Microsoft do, and vice-versa. There will never be a winner to the "console wars", and thus ample opportunity for people to rehash the good and the bad of all of the systems to try and make it sound like a new angle, when they're really just kicking a dead horse.
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'.
... "Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll says that the Novelty wears off pretty quickly, so I don't think I should bring it over."
I'll try to remember that to get people to stop asking me to bring my Wii to their Christmas party
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.
Good point. Nintendo will have to rely in the "whole product experience" and not the "added/kludge/hacked" approach the others will take if this input method catches on. But there is a lot to be said for the whole product experience.. it's a good reason the ipod keeps on top.
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.
Yeah, but without an additional calibration method (ie: sensor bar) to fix the drift from the accelerometers in the Sixaxis, you'll never be able to use it for "aiming" at the screen or anything requiring precision... Just gross movements.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
The current winner is the PS2.
And quite frankly, let's say the novelty DOES wear off after a month. Well, see, that person has ALREADY BOUGHT THE WII.
From the almost viral effect the Wii is having, in a couple of years we might see 100 million households with Wiis that are just getting bored of it. Remember the old shampoo commercial? "I told 2 friends, then they told 2 friends" etc. Every last person who's been over to play with my Wii (insert joke here) is now lining up every weekend trying to get one. Once they have it, every one of their friends will be doing the same.
If having half the the planet owning your console, and bored of it, is a problem - I'd like to have that problem, thanks. You think these people will stop buying games entirely?
Besides the fact that "a controller that doesn't really work very well for most games" is complete and utter bull. I've never seen a new idea implemented so nicely on a release lineup. The games designed for the wiimote work amazingly well RIGHT NOW - imagine how good this will get in a couple of years.
I've been a Nintendo fan for decades. I've loved nearly everything they've put out. Yet even I didn't think they'd see a TENTH of the demand and excitement going around right now. It's almost scary just how many people are telling me they want one. And it's got hardly any games yet. Wait until this thing has a few hundred titles out.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Perhaps what Nintendo understands that no other maker does, is that the last two generations of consoles have cultivated a different kind of consumer/user than previous generations: the "twitch players" which represent a tiny portion of the potential market. Why have so many FPS and violent games come out? Why are developers pandering to this group? I suspect because these games are easy to crank out and don't require nearly as much creativity. As a result, most people don't really give a shit about the "console wars." I know I don't. My last console was the N64 which I abandoned after the dearth of quality games (other than the core Nintendo titles).
It's all about the software. It always has been. The console that has the best software will win. It doesn't matter what the hardware specs are. Great software can compensate for inferior hardware -- though most of today's developers don't seem to understand that. I saw games that ran in 16K of RAM that had more longevity that today's multi-gigabyte monstrosities.
Quite simply, this is why the Wii will come on top. There is no way you can do that with an XBox 360 or a PS3.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Here are a few reason why I disagree. I guess time will tell which of us is right.
Yes, the 360 does indeed have HD-DVD. And yes, it is an add-on. I think that most people will like that. You have the choice of whether you want to pay for it or not. Microsoft isn't forcing you to buy it with their console. As a result, their console is considerably less expensive without giving up any of it's primary usage capabilities—gaming—and Microsoft was able to get a lot of the systems out and on the market a lot quicker than Sony has.
Not very many people have PSPs. Honestly, I bought one because I thought they were going to be the Next Big Thing(tm). They're not. Their potential never materialized, and I've been sorely disappointed at the lack of cool stuff for mine. The games aren't that good, the UMD movies are dead, and I haven't even turned the thing on in a year or so. I wish I could go back in time and slap myself silly for buying one. Maybe now that the PS3 is out, I can get a little something back for it on eBay.
This sounds like a marketing clip if ever I heard one. This assumes that: 1) people even have a PSP, 2) people carry their PSP around with them, 3) people have wireless access to the Internet everywhere they take their PSP, 4) people's friends will care what's on their PSP or PS3, 5) people will actually want to watch movies on a four-inch screen. Is PSP/PS3 communication neat? Sure. Is it a reason to buy either? No.
When I can rip my DVDs onto my computer and have it stream them to my PSP or PS3, come back and talk to me. (Yes, I know there's probably some long, complicated, illegal procedure to do this, but we're talking about what average consumers can do.)
No, you can't. Every review I have read says that the Xbox Live service is head and shoulders above Sony's online service.
As has already been pointed out, it's not $15 a month. It's less than $5 a month. And considering how much better the Xbox Live service is over Sony's, yes, I think that paying less than $5 a month for it is more than reasonable.
Not near
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'