Console War Correspondant

The Wii is the current leader in the current console war. The response from both Sony and MS is, well Cheat. They've disqualified the Wii for not playing by the rules and doing the same stuff but better looking. However the war is far from over. And it still could be everything to play for as so far Nintendo's biggest advantage is that it has not made any blunders.

Using a military analogy the Wii has won some early battles using the unconventional tactic of seemingly having different goals to its two competitors. Rather than barrel into a spec battle it went for innovative gameplay and quirky, original games. Like the clear win of the DS over the PSP Nintendo's biggest advantage has been their appeal to non-gamers thanks to party style games, innovative basic controller and low price point. In short rather than aim to win over the hardcore gamers, Nintendo almost went out of their way not to appeal to them (Although it has some very good titles for the more hardcore). It made the Wii the must have gift this Xmas which is no mean feat. In the long run the larger numbers of Wiis sold (Although supply problems, deliberate or not create good peer pressure based sales in the kids market. If all your friends have Wiis, you want a Wii rather than a 360 or PS3 so you can share games, play together and compare progress. The Wii versions of EA sports staples (Such as Madden NFL and tiger woods golf) have definitely given the sports simulation crowd a preference to the Wii as well despite the spiffier graphics of its rivals. Some games have had very good critical response, Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy. Zelda and Metroid Prime corruption have received solid reviews comparable to games on the XBox (PS3 have yet to gain a "killer App") To win Nintendo will have to continue to produce original fun titles peppered with the odd involving Hardcore title to keep the serious gamers interested.

Microsoft went for a quick attack by launching near enough a full year before its opponents, indeed they may have been the most prepared for this war, spending money during the XBox's tenure acquiring some very lucrative licences such as Grand Theft Auto. Neither of these are exclusive but MS have the first launch. Also getting the system out first now means they have an established user base and plenty of titles out there. Indeed evidence from the last war showed that the first system (PS2) won despite lower power. However, they blundered. It was a strange vision of consoles being an upgradeable entity that has to a large extent hobbled MS. They had a vision of people checking system specs before buying games, as is done with a PC. To this end they launched with 2 systems, core and the other one. The blunder came by not equipping the core with a hard disk. Now, any 360 game is limited by the storage of a memory card and the hard disk on the better and elite models is relegated for holding pictures, music and rented movies. Games can't utilise larger storage and can't use the hard disk to stream data to reduce loading times. I'm not exactly saying the core was a mistake, but the lack of a hard drive on it definitely was. Also the XBox is so riddled with DRM and lockdowns (Like a Mac :Shudder:) those tasks such as transferring data from an older 360 to the new one is an exercise in beurocracy and frustration. Still, if Sony and MS have decided the Wii doesn't count, since they target the "Hardcore" gamer, MS would do well to play up its "First dibs" essentially they should say "Play it first on 360" otherwise they will loose custom to the more powerful PS3.

Finally the PS3. It's very much the new boy. However already its Blu-Ray DVD drive has won that format war for Sony, but will it do the same in the games machine battles? Well, history shows us that the most powerful machine doesn't guarantee a win and the PS3 has yet to launch a "Must have" exclusive title, although it is definitely winning acclaim by its games looking significantly better than its rivals. It has also lowered its price from its initial high which has encouraged more people to consider it. However so far Sony has seriously blundered in a number of ways. Sony was complacent. After all, it was the winner of the previous 2 wars, and it pretty much thought it was the chief of the new generation of gaming, having beaten old hands Nintendo twice and seen off a well funded new rival in Microsoft. They had built the most powerful games machine on the planet and were fairly assured of victory. It was clear this early confidence was stuttering a bit when the Wii's controller was announced. Sony very much had the appearance of people floundering in confusion. Suddenly they had to include motion sensitivity in their controller, this combined with a small legal dispute over the Dualshocks use of rumble led to comedy announcements such as the controller can't hold motion detection and rumble (But the Wii does it and has a speaker and mic to boot) not only that but the significantly cheaper Wii was looking very strong on its launch. Sony's second mistake was not noticing that in the PS2 years MS had bought a fair number of their exclusive titles. Sony are fighting back now, short on exclusives they're being far cleverer. They play up the Blu-Ray aspect, making it a cheap option for a new movie player. Also, Sony are very much aware that their killer app on the PS2 was the Grand Theft Auto series of games. While you will play it first on the 360 Sony seem to be keeping their name linked to it. I don't know how but everywhere I read people talking about how the killer app for the PS3 is GTA 4, the fact that the 360 will have it first is ignored or glossed over. This could be a sign of very clever marketing, but it could backfire. Sony are winning some hardcore gamers away from their 360s, and have been fairly dismissive of the Wii as everything from a fad, a kids machine or not a machine for proper gamers. Some are buying this and PS3 sales are increasing. Sony are also pitching it as a bling type fashion accessory, almost akin to a big ugly car with spinners and neon lights, or a chunky gold watch, or £500 trousers, and again, some people are buying into this.

So in conclusion, it looks like the Wiis game at the moment, but Nintendo best keep things fresh and interesting and supplies coming lest their competitors get a better foothold.

That was longer than expected.