Mysteries of the Next-Gen Consoles Solved

Chris Morris, of CNN Money's Game Over column, has several final details on the next-gen consoles. He delves into availability, games, the new ads for both the Wii and the PS3 and (of course) "Who's going to win?" From the article: "For the past two generations, Sony has sold far more PlayStation units than its competitors have sold of their systems. Publishers, for their part, expect the field to be a lot more even over the next five years or so (which should be about the time you're asked to start focusing on the PS4, Xbox 720 and whatever funky name Nintendo comes up with next)."

Mulligan

[Headcase88]

Whoops. I hate walls of text so let me do this again.

End of 2009, in terms of number of consoles sold:
360 = 40% (has already built up momentum on both customer and developer sides)
Wii = 35% (I think it will explode out of the gate)
PS3 = 25% (Will have momentum issues (shortages guarantee this), but IMO will not age as quickly as the other consoles later on)

Like the article, no definite winner. But there is significantly more $ spent on 360s than the other two.

You're right, /., I should indeed have clicked the preview button :( . . . but I don't see a reason to slow down at this point ;)

Wii Ads

[lpangelrob]

"Core gamers know when we're coming out. They're prepared," [Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime] said. "The advertising and marketing is for casual gamers. We want to get them excited when they can actually go out and get something, so we'll start next week."

So that's why I haven't seen any Wii ads yet; apparently, the casual gamer doesn't start thinking about a console until it's out.

I have difficulty agreeing with this rationale, but then again, I'm not a casual gamer.

A Marginally Informed Opinion

[HeavenlyBankAcct]

As a former designer at a very large video game company that will remain unnamed so nobody comes after me with baseball bats for vaguely speaking in defiance of an NDA, I saw first-hand the nightmare that was PS3 development. We had a team assigned to 'port' one of our 360 titles to the PS3 for launch, and the porting process took almost as long as building the game did in the first place. As a non-developer, I don't know too many of the nuts-and-bolts of it, but I do know that the PS3's texture memory seems to be substantially more limited and/or volatile than Microsoft's and many of our game assets had to be retooled into lower bit-depths and smaller sizes to keep the system from crashing in areas where the 360 performed like a champ. New SDK's were released almost weekly right up until the bitter end of the PS3 'development period', many of these containing sweeping changes that required massive retooling of key aspects of the title, and nothing to do with the PS3 system, be it the OS, hardware, ever really seemed finalized or stable.

While I'm positive that these issues have been resolved (or at least, hopeful) -- I'm still going to wait quite a while before I even consider purchasing a new Sony box. With the massive amounts of hurdles developers have been jumping through to appease the flaky nature of this product launch, I don't expect to see very many quality games for this system for quite some time.

Re:CNN needs to cross-communicate with ther divisi

[drinkypoo]

They harp on $600 and don't even mention the $500 version

You mean the castrated version that has no wifi so your psp can't talk to it? I mean, I don't have a PSP, because I got over being a sony fanboy, but I'd be pissed. Oh and it has a tiny hard drive. Fuck'em.

They state Sony says it's worth it because it plays DVDs and wirelessly connects to the internet (No mention of Blue-Ray, HD, or 1080i)

Most people watching CNN don't know what Blu-Ray or 1080i are and only have a vague idea as to what HD is. They don't want to confuse people. This is why these aren't selling points. No one (statistically speaking) gives a shit. They already have a DVD player, which supports a higher resolution than 95% of the televisions in the US, so they just want a game machine. A lot of them are parents who wish we'd just go the hell back to carts so they don't have to keep replacing scratched game discs.

Although you can't see it in the video, the anchors on CNN went on about it further, ragging on the $600 price being something "They'd never pay for" even the weatherman joins in.

So what you're saying is that you're all butt-hurt because some people on CNN who aren't even paid to review games say they'd never pay for it? Guess what? I wouldn't pay $600 for that fucking thing either.

In short, CNN botched just about every position Sony has been trying to push about the PS3. CNN should talk with it's game/technology division more often. If this is the kind of knowledge the mainstreme consumer has about the PS3, it doesn't bode well...

I think that's an unfair representation of what's going on here. What's going on is that Sony is not properly communicating their message. These people are not highly informed games reviewers, right? They're just laymen (in this field) talking about some buzz. The buzz doesn't include anything on those things you wanted them to talk about, because again, no one gives a fuck about those features.

Aside from a few early-adopter types and the usual handful of trustafarians, people just want a machine that plays games. Do you really think the target market (which is ages like 15-24 or something) actually gives a shit about Blu-Ray? Again, it only matters if you have HD, and even then, it only matters if you feel that the quality of DVD Video is somehow lacking. Given that some significant percentage of people don't even have their HDTV configured to display HD, no one cares.

5 Years?

[MrBandersnatch]

If I was Microsoft Id be lining up my coup de grace for Sony by planning to release the next next gen machine within 2 years. A substantial trade-in scheme for 360 owners, integrated dual format HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive, whatever HD/Processor/graphic card that is available and provides backwards compatibility and a price point withing a few $100 of the PS3 when they launch and the deal should be sealed. Sony are literally BANKING on the PS3 being a long term success in order to recoup their development costs. If MS choses to puts the pressure on while Sony is so vulnerable its quite possible Sony will end up as the next Sega.

While I dont neccesarily consider the aove good for the industry I would consider it good business for the cash rich MS and a suitable reward for Sonys arrogance.

Re:5 Years?

[Wescotte]

If I was Microsoft Id

buy up all 400k units shipped to the US? Sounds like a good idea

Re:5 Years?

[DDLKermit007]

Thats a marketing budget. Hell of a way to short-circuit a competitor. Buy up all of their product and proceed to make it impossible for them to get exposure while your product keeps rolling along. All the while you get massive press pissing & moaning about it. Heck, as an added bonus the competition is taking a $200-$300 hit per console.