What's up with Console "Wars"?

[Bivotar]

I'm really at a loss why there seems to be such an emphasis on "who will win the console wars" or what console is the "best"? I guess this has gone on since the school yard debates of "my Atari is better than your Intellivision", but it just seems so much more evident now. It's as if we are supposed to choose a console and hope the others fail.

 

I personally think it is great that there is a choice, and each choice has its own strengths. You want HD graphics and solid online play - get an XBox360. You want a BluRay player, HD graphics and strong multimedia capabilities (and deep pockets) - get a PS3. You want a different way to play games and enjoy the Nintendo franchise games - get a Wii.

 

I have always enjoyed the Nintendo systems and games, plus its affordable, so I'm getting a Wii. I sincerely would LOVE to get a PS3, especially after playing it at MegaManFan's place, but I just can't afford it right now.

 

There's such venom going on about which console is the "best" and who will win the "war". I just don't get it. I enjoy reading the modern game forum and getting some great insight, but not the bullshit school yard fights that end up in most threads.

 

Just had to vent...

[Flojomojo]

It's very kiddie, but it seems to be human nature. It extends to sports (my team vs. your team), which is natural enough, but ridiculous when it gets into cars (Ford vs. Chevy, Audi vs. Nissan), computers (Windows vs. Mac), and even more nerdly things (Gentoo vs. Ubuntu).

 

One thing people forget is that even "losers" like Nintendo can be very profitable, and that it's not all about market share.

 

In closing, http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/consoles/some...s-up-178901.php

[+remowilliams]

I'm really at a loss why there seems to be such an emphasis on "who will win the console wars" or what console is the "best"? I guess this has gone on since the school yard debates of "my Atari is better than your Intellivision", but it just seems so much more evident now. It's as if we are supposed to choose a console and hope the others fail.

 

I personally think it is great that there is a choice, and each choice has its own strengths.

Got me. I collect all the consoles, call 'em like I see 'em and just enjoy gaming. I hope that those companies that give me what I want continue to do well, but I don't go around cheerleading about it or declaring world dominance.

 

People having a preference never bothers me, but it's when people keep endlessly spouting company rhetoric or fanboy bullshit, ignore reality, or otherwise blatantly talk out their ass that I get annoyed. And I have a feeling that applies to others as well.

[Starscream]

Oddly, if you go to the 360 forum, all discussions are on topic. Nobody bashes the wii and seldom the PS3. They don't talk about a win.

 

If you go to the PS3 forums, 95% is Sony-bash, lots of wii spokespeople trying to sell more systems, doom and gloom for Sony, and wii is the best choice. All "wins" that are spoken of are about the wii.

 

If you go to the wii section, the PS3 gets most abused, followed very closely by the 360. People call anyone who doesn't praise the wii a troll, and we even have topics about a system that sold out it's first 5 weeks a "Smashing success".

 

I'll give you one guess as to the problem. It starts with the forum that makes "winning" an issue.

[Emehr]

Not that I'm supporting the cause but if I had to wager a guess, the reason people want to see a "win" scenario is because they don't want their particular system to "lose" and therefore "die" ala Dreamcast.

 

History has shown that three consoles can co-exist in the marketplace.

[Ross PK]

I think the whole 'wars' thing is fun.

[DracIsBack]

The wars always remind me of the book "lies, damned lies and statistics".

[moycon]

I'm really at a loss why there seems to be such an emphasis on "who will win the console wars"

 

I don't think "who will win the console wars" discussions are annoying, they are just silly because no-one can forsee the future, what's annoying is the wealth of mis-information and outright bullshit that gets posted as fact to justifiy a persons reasons for not buying a particular console. It is lame, but deserves to be called out if only to inform people who have not yet decided what system to buy.

Edited December 29, 2006 by moycon

[NovaXpress]

I find it all fascinating, but I don't have personal favorites. If a system is good, I don't care who makes it. Speculation is part of any interest, harmless fun. I love to analyze trends and make predictions, but mine are no more valuable than the next guy's.

 

But many people are insecure about their own views and get snippy. They get pissed if anyone doesn't like their favorite band, favorite food, or whatever. That's just stupid. I'm glad that no one thinks exactly like I do and I don't look down on people for having different tastes.

 

Yet fanboys are soooo fun to screw with.

[Foxsolo2000]

The console wars started back with Atari/Intellivision didn't it? It gained speed when Colecovision and Vectrex entered the scene and was later taken over by Sega and Nintendo up until Sega dropped out of the raced to be repalced by Sony and Microsoft. I do remember the titanic struggle that took place between Sega and Nintendo in the late 80's to late 90's but could never understand why it had to be so intense to the point where fans were throwing venomous daggers at each other? With the big three of today I dont see so much of a conflict taking place for everyone I have talked to have their opinions and respect the other consoles even though they have no intention of getting them. I would love to get a PS3 but the price has put me off and I will stick with my trusty PS2 although I am entertaining the idea of getting a 360 simply because my friend has one

[King_Salamon]

I agree Foxsolo... the George PLimpton ads for the Intellivision versus the Atari were what I recall most from the era in terms of console wars.

 

Did it matter then? Nope... I wanted everything! Does it matter now? Nope, I want everything! LOL!

[Inky]

IMHO, its all bullshit from the marketing departments, that spills over into the fanbase.

 

In the 80's I remember getting into arguments about, of all things, McD's frying thier burgers vs. Burger King broiling them.

[thomasholzer]

and as anyone knows, PC platform won the war

[JB]

and as anyone knows, PC platform won the war

Riiiiiiight...

[hex65000]

An interesting reflection on the state of things...

It is interesting to see the drama and watch who bashes who on the forums.

Admittedly, I've thought about adding something snippy here and there, but typically decide against it since it's just overly petty.

 

Right now, the losers in the 'war' as far as I'm concerned is all three.

 

I am yet to see something that I must have for the 360 after being out for a year. If I cared to get on live and pay extra cash for a subscription or wanted to get Morrowind 4 or Gears of War it may be worth it. I hate playing FPSes with the dual sticks, it's a complete drag for me. A USB KB/mouse adapter wouldn't be that hard to implement would it?

 

The PS3 is beyond my means, I don't have a hi-def TV -- at all. My current TV works just fine, why junk it for an overpriced TV? I just finished modding my Commodore 1702 to support the s-video mini-din connector. It looks good, but it's a rather small monitor. Therefore, investing in Blu-ray is just not worthwhile. The library has nothing that excites me to the point of wanting the unit. Don't care about Madden 0X or Resistance. Coupled with the difficulties I've had with PS2 units holding up I am yet to see a reason to be impressed. Not to mention the thing looks to be almost as big as an original Xbox.

 

The Wii seems interesting, but is still more than I'm willing to pay and I'm not keen on the way they glued the virtual console content to the deck. I still want to try one out though. Again, nothing gotta have at this point, and I'm not huge on Zelda.

 

Meanwhile, now is the time to start sucking up those goodies I missed out on while the early adopters work the bugs out of the systems. Lucky them. I'm quite content to fill in missing holes in my library for an acceptable price.

 

Hex.

[ The 'disco'-net?!? ]

[Clint Thompson]

@ hex6500....

 

Interesting indeed! *but actually, I'm confused*

 

By all means your welcome to your own opinion(s) and desire(s) for any system... but going out on the limb to say that HD-TV is just an overpriced TV is a bunch of... shit. (Sorry, sometimes I can't hold myself from being so blunt... at least, in this situation) I had my 360 hooked up to my 1702 and it looks like ass compared to an HDTV set. If you honestly can't see the difference, then I highly urge you to seek vitamin replenisments for your eyes. (Lutein is readily available for purchase on the cheap at many local drug stores).

 

In regards to your other console raves:

 

360: They have made an adaptor that will allow you to play using your USB Keyboard and Mouse. While it sounds like your extremely cautious on how you spend your money, the $79 investment probably isn't worth your time. It also leads me to believe you game on your PC which probably costs you a lot of money in which I could fully understand 'carefully' choosing on how you'll wisely spend (or not) whatever money you might not have left over after keeping your quad-core 2GB HyperQuantumSpeed Tech™ PC at it's peak to play those amazing (or not so) games that come out every once in a great moon. I'll just assume you don't play high-end PC games, however. (well, it'll at least get me through this post ).

 

PS3: *See systems connected to SDTV's and 1702s in beginning of post. Aside from like 3 games, the PS3 is exactly the same (addition of Blu Ray) as the Xbox 360 (without the live, XBLA games, and other things...)

 

Wii: I'm just curious... but by chance did you get your Atari and games (or all games for that matter) for free? $249 for the system is a pretty decent deal imo. You get a nice completel package that plays GameCube games, surfs the net, does Virtual Console games, new innovative controller with a packaged sport games with many different styled games to play in the future. While I don't own one nor do I have any immediate plans to purchase one, I'd highly recommend the system to anyone who likes to play games.

 

Ok, I'm done being a bitch and I would highly respect you to bitch-slap me in the face for my post... but I felt the need to question (or understand is all) why you see things the way you do (no pun intended).

 

Really though, I'm only poking fun. If modern technology isn't your bag, then so be it! As long as your happy is what really matters!

[Inky]

As long as your happy is what really matters!

 

 

Clint wins life.

[Clint Thompson]

As long as your happy is what really matters!

 

 

Clint wins life.

[hex65000]

I think you winged my point Clint.

 

My impression of HDTV is that there are a couple of hi-def standards out there at this point. I don't want to 'invest' in a new TV until I have a real reason to. (IE: my current TV has died.) Even then, preferably once a single standard has been established. I have seen some of the lower end hi-def TVs in stores and they look nice. Heck, even when I used to use my VGA adapter on my Dreamcast it looked pretty awesome. It's just that my priorites don't say that I must upgrade my TV. Actually, my next major purchase is likely going to be a new vehicle or a 4 channel oscilloscope. Go figure.

 

You know, if I gotta have component video, I think my Mitsubishi 19" monitor has component BNCs; I know where to get adapters for ~$4-5 a pop, and whammo! I have a small hi def component video TV.

 

Actually, my PC is pretty out of date; (Athlon XP2400 (2GHz); 1GB mem; GeForce FX5200) -- I just feel like I get better control with the kb/mouse combo that a dual stick cannot provide. The DC-centric KB/mouse combo was one of the smartest ideas that flopped with that unit. I wish more games supported it is all. I wasn't aware that they made an adapter for the 360, what about other platforms? Link?

 

The $250 for the Wii is okay. I would rather have it at $200 though. The fact that they supplied the pack-in game is nice though. The thing is I haven't gotten a chance to try it out and see if I like the control scheme. It is the only member of this generation that holds any interest with me, and I remain skeptical at this point. Coupled with minimal interest in the launch library, there's no reason to go out and buy it yet. You also glossed over the virtual console gripe. Nintendo needs to make this more consumer friendly than shipping your system off to them to transfer content over.

 

The other thing you missed and perhaps I was vague about is that I'm approaching a point where I'm feeling 'full' with the last generation back. I have aquired a pretty hefty collection both from my childhood 2600 collection to a fairly impressive selection of N64, Genesis, and SNES stuff. I'm realizing that I'm not going to have time to play all of this stuff and have already started cutting out some of the dead weight titles to deal with my looming space constraints.

 

So yeah, When I have my Jag, Snes, N64, PS1, PS2, Saturn, Dreamcast, and Xbox all sitting in front of the TV it's hard to say 'Man, I need another system or three sitting there!'

 

Hex.

[ The Gamecube was omitted, because I moved it to my 1702 monitor... ]

[Foxsolo2000]

A friend of mine forked out over a thousand pounds UK sterling for his HD wide screen LCD tv and when he hooked his 360 up to it the effects were outstanding. The 360 is capable of doing some very realsistic graphics which is one of the reasons why I am considering getting one but until I can afford the TV as well it will just remain a thought

[+kisrael]

Console wars are fun. Sometimes they're even enlihgtening.

 

The Wii fandom might partially be a backlash to the last 2 generations, w/ Playstations being a clear sales champ, and Nintendo being saddled with a not-entirely-fair "for kids" image. (My personal Sony grudge has to deal with the PS2 not having 4 controller ports built in, and then getting a psone years later and finding way too few games in genres I liked.)

 

Many Wii fans might not be thinking about the limitations of their system, in some games, you really see where accelemerators plus "mouse pointer" is only a subsitute for "proper" 3D tracking.

 

On the other hand, it can make for some really cool and engaging video game experiences.

 

So seeing Nintendo really making great strides in sales and mindshare is cool, and while I think we won't know for maybe a year what the long term themes of this round of console war will be, the bickering can be fun in the meantime.

 

I suspect PS3 might not have many defenders because the consoles so difficult to get, in terms of finding it, and then paying for it...

[Video]

I think it's funny, that the biggest reason people will bash another system is.....they're too poor to buy one.

 

Now I see one clear looser in that case, and that's the PS3, unless they pull off som serious shit, they are no doubt about it, going to fail in this generation. And why is that? Money, the thing costs $600+ ( +, cause you have to still buy games and such for it)

 

So, absolute honestly, I expect the PS3 to be a no contender in this generation, while the reall console 'wars' will be between Xbox360, and Wii.

 

But mostly, people just do the console wars because, well, like said earlier. People don't want their console to fail (especially if they can't afford the others) and one way to guarantee that your console succedes, is to try to get people to buy your console. The easiest way is to badmouth everything else. And in this world, the vast majority of people think reverse psychology works, so they believe the easiest way to make people buy their system, is to not only bash people for any other choice, but to call them stupid. "I like brand X, and your stupid for liking brand Y" Of course, in real life it doesn't work worth a damn. So it just goes on, and on, and on........forever.

 

Personally, instead of having a console war, based on ignorance, and misinformation, buy all the consoles (if you can afford them) and bass it on your own preferance. Just remember, everybody prefers different things.

 

Here was me on the last console wars (PS2, X-box, GC...and to a lesser extent, Dreamcast) I bought all the systems. In fact, at the time, I had a good job with good pay, so I bought all (with the exception of dreamcast) day one.

 

Dreamcast, I expected it to fail, not because it was in any way a bad system. It had a lot of great things going for it, four ports, internet built in, online gameing. But I was looking at the facts, and the facts at the time were, Sega prematurely dumped every previous game system, all the way back to the Genesis, and left customers haning with an expensive, unsupported game system.

 

As it turns out, I was right, Dreamcast was, as Sega's previous experiance taought me (and many other people) dumped, right as the X-Box, and Game cube were released....actually, months befor it was already winding down.

 

PS2, with the rabbid success of the PS1, it's going to be a safe bet, and it had something that's always a selling point for me, backwards compatibility with the PSX library. Of course, I kept my PSX, as I didn't want to put undue wear on the PS2, but have scense, had my PSX die, and gone to PS2 playing only. As I said, huge fan bass, and backwards compatibility were the plusses for me. I expected it to be more even with the other consoles this time around, due to mot being more competivly priced than the competition (2 of which, came out a year later) And I expected it to be more popular, simply due to it's mass lead.

 

As it turns out, I use the PS2, almost exclusively for PSX games. The PS2 simply had to much generic stuff, and a mass flood of crap, of course, I should have seen that from the PSX, but I thought this generation would be different. Boy was I wrong. It was masivly popular, most likely, due to the reason I stated above, it simply was out earlier.

 

X-box, Microsoft was a newcomer to the gameing console market, so that is really a shot in the dark for me. But Halo looked cool, and as I said, I was in the money at the time, and could afford it. With the built in hard drive, I fully expected it to do more than the other consoles at the time, but agian, newcomere, real grey area.

 

As it turns out, it was a real success, had it been released along side the PS2, instead of a year later, we may have had a different (based on sales numbers) winner of the console war. It did a LOT better than I expected it to, and it's exclusives were well worth it.

 

Game Cube, eveybody knows Nintendo, and the N 64 was great (I don't care what other people say, I'm talking games here) and the only real thing that hurt Nintendo with the N 64, was the fact that it took carts (which automatically, people assumed, ment it couldn't do good games) Boy, it's odd what BS comes up in console wars and fanboyism. Well, the Cube fixed the one problem with making the Cube, disc bassed. Unfortunately, I saw one immidiate problem, even befor launch. While it is disc based, it uses a odd format that only holds a little less than one third of the competitions discs. Yes, it's bigger than carts (the biggest 64 cart was 64MB I belive, while this was 1.5GB) But it still had the problem of the old 64 in a way, of it didn't hold as much data as the competition, even though it held a lot more than it's previous generation. But hey, Nintendo has Mario, Zelda, and FZero.

 

As it turns out, the cube, while it wasn't a total failure (it made them money) it was a flop compared to anything else of the generation. Games kept being pushed back, canceled, or changed alltogether to something else just about last minute (zelda) or were just N64 Titles that were quickly ported to the Cube (Mario), and I'm not sure that F Zero was ever released. Over all, this system, which I expected to come in second, came in last. Had Sega not dumped the Dreamcast befor the Cube come out...I fully believe that Sega would have still been around, and Nintendo would have had the dead console of this generation.

 

So, nobody can tell the future, but if you buy all the consoles, then at least you can have a fair, if a bit biassed, view of how things will go, but liek this example, the results will most likely surprise you.

[+kisrael]

I think it's funny, that the biggest reason people will bash another system is.....they're too poor to buy one.

Dude, it's kind of rude to say "you're so poor"... sometimes it will be teens or younger without financial resources, or sometimes it's a combination of pricepoint and time needed to get into it that's the total expense.

But mostly, people just do the console wars because, well, like said earlier. People don't want their console to fail (especially if they can't afford the others) and one way to guarantee that your console succedes, is to try to get people to buy your console.

Which is kind of weird, because people as individuals don't have much influence over console success, they're part of a larger tide...

 

I think also people want to help justify their own loyalties.

 

X-box, Microsoft was a newcomer to the gameing console market, so that is really a shot in the dark for me. But Halo looked cool, and as I said, I was in the money at the time, and could afford it. With the built in hard drive, I fully expected it to do more than the other consoles at the time, but agian, newcomere, real grey area.

 

As it turns out, it was a real success, had it been released along side the PS2, instead of a year later, we may have had a different (based on sales numbers) winner of the console war. It did a LOT better than I expected it to, and it's exclusives were well worth it.

I don't think it ended up doing much with that harddrive-- though it made it a big favorite of home media modders...

 

Its exclusives were good, there was a nice dedication to multiplayer, both online and splitscreen, and it generally had an edge on games that were released multiplatform.

 

still had the problem of the old 64 in a way, of it didn't hold as much data as the competition, even though it held a lot more than it's previous generation.

How many games did that really hurt though? I can't think of many games that seemed to suffer from that, unlike the N64... was it make developer's live's miserable, do we know that?

 

 

As it turns out, the cube, while it wasn't a total failure (it made them money) it was a flop compared to anything else of the generation. Games kept being pushed back, canceled, or changed alltogether to something else just about last minute (zelda) or were just N64 Titles that were quickly ported to the Cube (Mario), and I'm not sure that F Zero was ever released. Over all, this system, which I expected to come in second, came in last. Had Sega not dumped the Dreamcast befor the Cube come out...I fully believe that Sega would have still been around, and Nintendo would have had the dead console of this generation.

I thought it was about a tie with the Xbox? It certainly wasn't a "distant third".

Also, it had a very solid Zelda entry, with the other one pushed to Wii, kind of...

It certainly had a F Zero..

Not sure about the Mario situation, though I think Sunshine is highly under-rated...

And of course, it brought Metroid into 3D.

 

I liked the DC though. But didn't it have even worse disk-storage issues than the GC?

[CHIP72]

Now I see one clear looser in that case, and that's the PS3, unless they pull off som serious shit, they are no doubt about it, going to fail in this generation. And why is that? Money, the thing costs $600+ ( +, cause you have to still buy games and such for it)

 

I find it perpetually funny that people talk as if the PS3 will ALWAYS be $600. It is very expensive NOW, but it won't be 2 years from now. It also has a moderate advantage over the XBox 360 and a huge advantage over the Wii in HDTV capabilities, which I think in a year or two will be very important.

[Video]

I think it's funny, that the biggest reason people will bash another system is.....they're too poor to buy one.

Dude, it's kind of rude to say "you're so poor"... sometimes it will be teens or younger without financial resources, or sometimes it's a combination of pricepoint and time needed to get into it that's the total expense.

 

I thought it was about a tie with the Xbox? It certainly wasn't a "distant third".

Also, it had a very solid Zelda entry, with the other one pushed to Wii, kind of...

It certainly had a F Zero..

Not sure about the Mario situation, though I think Sunshine is highly under-rated...

And of course, it brought Metroid into 3D.

 

I liked the DC though. But didn't it have even worse disk-storage issues than the GC?

 

For that first statement, let me rephrase it. Ask ANYBODY that bashes a console for any reason, one question, and you'll 99% of the time, get the same answer. The question is "Do you actually have the console" And their answer will inevitibly be "no" Why don't they have the console? For the most part, they lack the money. Sure, you could say, they could spend more money supporting that one system, but given everybody has preferances, there's a limit to how many games you can buy for ANY system, befor you run out of your type of games. Oh, and back when I had money, I was one of those "Teenagers without financial resourses" Remember, That also reads Teenagers without financial obligations. Did they have good saving skills? Did they get an allowance? Do they get any money (or a console) for christmas, etc. The means are actually FAR greater for kids to get this stuff, than it is for adults to get it, due to the fact that adults are taking care of their kids, house, car, or whatever else. Oh for the days when I had a much larger disposable income. Oh well.. But still, facts is facts, people don't buy all consoles, cause they don't have the money, weather it be due to being poor, or just haveing other need other than video games.

 

For the second one, it's cool that they have F Zero, it never made it here, and I hear nobody ever bring it up, which I could assume that it either never came out, or was a big flop. Or maybe people just liked the older style of the GBA F zeros better .

Zelda, was my example of a game that was 'last minute changed' because if you go look online, and at Nintendo's own Nintendo Power, the game was supposed to be realistic looking, and pretty much cell shading was a last minute announcement. And that did in fact put a lot of people off (not me, as I simply didn't like the 64 games and expected it to be like them) I personally like the old 2D games better, but that's a preferance, not a fact, so I rarely bring it up.

And Mario Sunshine, was builg ground up, as a N 64 title. It was ripped from the 64 at the last minute, and roughly translated to work on the cube. It's not that good a game to start with, but even at it's time, it looked dated with it's 'more closely resembling the 64' style graphics. Of course, for me, put 3D mario in the same boat as 3D zelda. I liked Mario 64 OK, but it didn't seem nearly as good, or well polished compared to say, Super Mario World.

 

And for the third, yes, the Dreamcast had worse storage than the Game Cube. At one Gig per disc. However....remember that the Game Cube was competeing with the PS2 and X-box, both with 4.5Gig Discs, while the Dreamcast (upon release) was competing with the Nintendo 64 (at 64G the largest IIRC) and PSX (at 750 or so MB) so it was not a major storage advantage, but it did have it at the time. I do agree, it really wasn't a problem. But, was it not a problem, because the extra space wasn't needed/wanted? Or was it not a problem because the cube in general didn't have that much (relatively) released on it? Take Tony Hawk, or Need for Speed HP2, for example. Probably any other games with videos for that matter, and place them along side the X-box or PS2 counterpart, and you'll notice, while the game itself is on par, useually, the videos are compressed far more, ie, more grainy, pixelated, poorer sound, etc. So in some cases, I would have to say that it did suffer at least some from it's small disc.

Edited December 30, 2006 by Video