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The Latest From the Front in the Console Wars
The October NPD numbers are out, and (now that we know we'll keep getting the information) it's time once again for analysis and reaction from media and businesses alike. GameDaily has a one year later look at the fight that began last holiday season. As for the numbers themselves, with Halo 3 now a known quantity in the market the 360 is down to 366,000 from 527,800 in September. Microsoft is still quite happy with software sales, though. The PS3 only saw 121,000 units sold last month, but early news from November has Sony very excited. And all the while, somehow, the Wii manages to sell even more units. The system is up to 519,000 from 501,000 in September, with the DS slight down to 458,000 from 495,800. As the GameDaily analysis article concludes: "the race for console dominance is still anyone's to win. The 2007 holiday buying season will be crucial to setting all three players' market positions going into next year. Which is all nice to know, of course, but not that important to actually enjoying your system of choice well into the future."
Those wii games are called fantastic above, but they only seem fantastic in comparison to other wii games. My kid has a wii, and I play Zelda because Ocarina was such a great game. This Zelda is only slightly more advanced and is missing so many sidequests. It's not a finsihed game. Metroid would look bad on my ps2.
And that's not the most valid criticism, since I'm overlooking the controller. If you love that controller it makes up for the games. But the games themselves are just not very good. I believe that if Zelda and Metroid 3 were PS3 games, the Sony haters would rightfully roast Sony for such poor offerings.
The wii is a novel idea but it's all about the games. The 360 and the PS2 are the best places to find games. The PS3 is flopping horribly in this department for reasons I cannot fathom. The wii is neat and well hyped, like the ipodm and describing those games as fantastic really proves my point.