THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: Ozymandias on 14 May 2007, 20:07
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Japan.
April 2007.
DS - 847,000
Wii - 358,000
PSP - 123,000
PS2 - 52,000
PS3 - 49,000
360 - 12,000
GBA - 4,400
GCN - 1,000
Wii sold three times the PS2, PS3, and 360 combined. The gap between sales is just constantly widening, the PS3 down 50K from last month, the Wii up 60K.
I really want to see NPD numbers. Japan is terrifyingly dominated by Nintendo these days, but it's never surprising. US is where it counts.
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According to the last figures I saw (Which are a couple months old), the Wii will probably surpass the 360 by the time it's six full months old. A couple months ago, the consoles were at 10 mill (360), 6 mill(Wii) and 3 mill (PS3). The 360'll continue to sell, but I think the PS3 is going to continue to drop off and eventually pretty much completely bottom out by the end of 2008. It's simply too costly to produce for them to make it fiscally reasonable to put it out at an even vaguely competitive price point before it's too late for them to make its release anything but an utter fiasco.
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Actually Japan was firmly Sony territory last gen (just like everywhere else), so Nintendo surpassing them is pretty significant.
For some reason Europe has always had a pretty huge hard-on for Sony products, but yes, the US is the most significant console market by far. The question at this point is: Can Sony recover from their horrendous missteps at launch and cut back on the 360's head start? And will the current Wii craze die off, or will hardcore gamers split between the 360 and PS3 and all use the Wii as their secondary system, putting Nintendo in the lead? Or will the Wii really finally do what people have been trying for years and appeal to both casual and traditional gamers? Nobody really knows. I'll most likely eventually ending up all 3 consoles this generation, so it really doesn't matter. Console wars are for marketing executives and 15-year-old forum kids. There's plenty of room for all of the companies to do business and make money and the sort of bizarre, cult-like loyalty video game consoles seem to foster is frankly baffling.
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How many people game on a PC compared to a console? Is it even relevant or is it a different demographic? It would be interesting to see the comparison. I'm a pretty casual gamer these days, as I have uni and a full time job, which takes up a lot of my time. Back in the 90's when I was a high school student, I was pretty fanatical about games. I've always preferred using a PC to the consoles,
The perception amongst my friends and I were that consoles were kind of for the "weeny" gamers, people who couldn't afford a pc, the games on a console were never as good and the hardware was always outdated. Nowadays something curious has happened. It seems to have changed, the hardware in consoles are getting really good (especially the PS 3) and there seems to be a lot more games for them now then there was back in the mega drive/ snes days.
I'm seriously considering buying a PS 3, the hardware in it seems amazing, the cell processor has definitely got me intrigued and not having to worry about patches, drivers, disk space etc seems like a really nice convenience. Also the ability to be able to tinker with it by Installing Linux on it really appeals to the geek in me.
I guess what I'm asking is for someone who is at the moment a very casual gamer (I'll buy maybe 6 new games a year) is it worth buying a console? Or should I spend the money on upgrading my PC? Or even is the ps3 really the best console if I were to buy one. If someone wants to give me a brief run down on the state of gaming at the moment I'd appreciate it.
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Actually, that's not a recent trend. Consoles, at launch period (The first year or two of its lifetime) have always outperformed PC games. Compare early era games on a given console to games that were coming out for PC at the same time, usually the console game surpasses the PC game.
Plus, in order to get the bleeding edge graphics that surpass any given gen of consoles, one has to drop an absolute mint. It's not so much a matter of not being able to afford as proper money management. In order to keep up with anything even encroaching upon the graphical limitations of the 360 and PS3, one would have to drop close to a grand on upgrades (High end processor, plenty of RAM, high end graphics card, good cooling system, nice monitor, in some cases a new motherboard to run SLI and a newer processor). Why do that when you can get an Xbox 360 for $400?
PC gaming is the absolute, far and away worst place for the casual gamer. It's a landscape pretty much dominated by MMOs and FPS and they really don't wander far out of that pair of genres. The selection of even viable PC games is few and far between, much less a variety of them. Pretty much everything available for PC ends up on consoles these days as the console market is exponentially larger.
Judging by your perception, you sound like a slowly recovering "PC elitist." That breed's swiftly dying out in this day and age. Preferring is one thing, but considering console gamers the "weeny" variety is a bit snobbish. The games on console versus PC is debateable in terms of actually gameplay and fun (Which to most console gamers are the real factors that matter). I could name more games for any single console (Even short-lived ones like the Dreamcast) that I enjoyed than games exclusively for the PC I enjoyed.
If you want top hardware and graphics "possibilities", the Playstation 3 is the way to go. If you want to actually get any mileage out of it, though, I'd vehemntly recommend against it. The reason I quote the word possibilities is that I honestly don't think the PS3 will ever reach its potential or even surpass the 360 in terms of actualized graphics.
The system with the best hardware hasn't been the best received since the Super Nintendo. N64 and Xbox were the most powerful consoles in the last two generations and neither performed well in terms of sales. The problem arises that the more powerful and complicated the console is, the harder to design for it is. The Wii, the weakest hardware wise, is said to be the easiest by far to program for, and thus more attractive to programmers. The PS3 is so complex in its architecture that most developers are wary to work with it (Dev kits weren't even finalized and released until scant months before release) and even fewer are willing to try to explore its full potential due to the enormous cost.
Power is one thing, but it's software selection that makes or breaks a console and PS3 simply doesn't have it. We live in a wasteful society and a $600 price tag isn't going to drive consumers away from a good product. The reason the PS3 is sitting on shelves isn't the price, it's the piss-poor support it's getting. Nintendo is a company that can survive on its own properties (Your Marios, Zeldas, Metroids, etc), Sony is not. Sony has a scant handful of marketable first party games and they tend to jump around on them too much (They seem to have all but given up on Jak and Daxter, for example). Meanwhile, Microsoft is gobbling up all of Sony's third party support. They're not pulling exclusive games over to the 360 exclusively themselves, but getting the games on their console as well is enough. If you've got a choice between spending $400 and $600 to play GTA 4, which are you gonna do? ESPECIALLY when the graphical difference is negligible? Sony has, officially, lost exclusive rights to just about every major third party game in development (Devil May Cry, GTA, Resident Evil, etc) and even mainstays like Square Enix are jumping ship (While not announced for 360, FF XIII is not a Sony exclusive and will probably end up there). Considering MGS II came out for Xbox, I doubt the new installment will stay exclusive to Sony much longer with all these developers going with the more likely sale on the 360. Also, Sony's arrogance has been getting the best of them, too. One good example would be with the Unreal 3 engine. Sony had an exclusive agreement to have the next Unreal Tournament on PS3 instead of 360. Along came Gears of War for 360 and Sony shit-talked said game to try and make the competition look bad. This ended up pissing off the Unreal dev team and they yanked the exclusivity.
That's not even touching on the Wii, the console with the current fastest rate of sale. At the clip it's going, it might be the fastest console ever to ten million by the time the demand starts to die down a little (They're still allegedly difficult to find, even with six million units shipped).
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This is awesome. I've never been a fan of Playtsation.
I've owned, in my young life, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Playstation, Playstation 2, and Gamecube. And had many friends with N64 when it first came out.
I actually sold my PS2 to get my Gamecube because the only thing I ever played on it were old Playstation 1 wrestling, Crash Bandicoot, and Final Fantasy games.
Nintendo just makes more fun games. They care about their games being entertaining, not how much the characters in them look like real-life characters. I guess Playstation's fine if the only thing you're interested in is sports and shooting people. But Nintendo's just more fun.
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The really shocking thing is that the DS continues to sell like a motherfucker in Japan and the U.S. I kind of assumed that everyone who wanted one of those had one by now, but it seems not.
As for the consoles...I'm not surprised, considering it's a full 5-6 months since launch and you still can't walk into a random store and get a Wii. I can't remember the last time a console was so hard to find, but maybe that's because I was never actively following the availability of the PS2 and 360 when they launched and were highly prized.
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What's the point of owning a PS3 if you don't own a 1080p HDTV?
I'll most likely buy a 360 in the next few months. With GTA IV and FFXIII not being exclusive to Sony, my reasons for owning a PS3 have gone from few to none. (Although FFXIII hasn't been announce for 360, what other platform is there for it? Wii couldn't handle the graphics, so the 360 is the only logical choice.)
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What's the point of owning a PS3 if you don't own a 1080p HDTV?
I'll most likely buy a 360 in the next few months. With GTA IV and FFXIII not being exclusive to Sony, my reasons for owning a PS3 have gone from few to none. (Although FFXIII hasn't been announce for 360, what other platform is there for it? Wii couldn't handle the graphics, so the 360 is the only logical choice.)
Yeah, truth be told, the only reason I still want a PS3 is LittleBigPlanet. And even that's getting hard to justify...I was gonna go with the 500$ SKU but now they've discontinued it. Dear god, let there be a price drop in the next 12 months.
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Long reply
Thanks for that, that was exactly the kind of thing I was after, I guess it is fair enough to call me a PC elitist, I work wih computers and spend maybe 12+ hours a day in front of a computer so yeah makes sense. The main computer I own now is fairly high end, I need it to be for some of the work I do, it's an AMD X2 4400, 2 gb ram, only thing it doesn't have is a good graphics card (I have a Geforce 6600 ), so if I was going to make a purchase it would only be a better card.
I guess I'm pretty torn between the PS3 and the Xbox, I absolutely loathe Microsoft so I'm reluctant to get the Xbox, on the other hand it sound like it has some really great games I'll be missing out on. The Wii looks ok too but I dunno one of my friends has one and I've never really liked playing on it, could just be he's choice in games though, the conotrller does seem pretty nifty but I'd still need to buy a new HD/Blu Ray player ifI bought one.
I think I'll just wait until Christmas where the price will drop for all of them, might be more games out for each by then.
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Storm Rider is right in that "console wars" are for marketers and YouTube users. Beyond that I don't have a lot to say, except that I bought a Wii a couple of weeks ago and can affirm that they are difficult to find. My brother had to wait in line outside of Best Buy on the day it was shipped with like twenty other people.
By the way, the Wii has sold about 2.3 million units in North America as of April 7th and around six million units worldwide. Wikipedia says there's been four million Xbox 360s sold in North America from the system's launch in 2005 to Christmas of 2006, but nothing more recent; as of that same time period, Microsoft claims they sold ten million worldwide. I guess you can see where I'm going with this. In a year, Microsoft managed to sell ten million units, but if Nintendo's sales keep going at the same rate then in the same time frame the Wii will have sold eighteen million.
The PS3 has sold 1.2 million units in North America thus far, and three million units worldwide.
When I get enough money I'll have all three. Yammer about your hi-def TVs all you want but frankly I just want the games, and I'll get the TV later.
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I'd still need to buy a new HD/Blu Ray player ifI bought one.
Why? For one, no one knows if either one is going to catch on, much less which one will win the format war. Buying an HD DVD/Blu Ray player in the next year or two will have about a 50% chance of being a waste of $400+ dollars. DVD was such a technological leap over VHS that it was a foregone conclusion. It could be years before there's a clear victor between HD and Blu Ray. I'd heavily recommend against sinking your cash into it.
I think I'll just wait until Christmas where the price will drop for all of them, might be more games out for each by then.
I wouldn't count on it just yet. It took the PS2 almost two years before it dropped below the debut price of $300. Sony and Microsoft are already taking heavy losses at their current price points and Sony has already discontinued the $500 model due to the fact it was a fiscal black hole. It'll likely be a few years before either one drops under $300.
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re: HD/Blu-Ray wars - check this (http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/08/lgs-ggw-h10n-hd-dvd-blu-ray-combo-drive-previewed/), or this (http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/18/the-first-combination-hd-dvd-blu-ray-media-pc/), and especially this (http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/05/lgs-bh100-hd-dvd-blu-ray-player-officially-hits-stores/).
And to rehash my old question, what's the point of owning a PS3, a blu-ray or HDDVD player if you don't have a 1080p television? I don't have the $4k to spend on a good plasma HD television, but I can fork up the $600 for a 360 and a game or two. If a machine was purposfully built for high-end televisions, then the buyer isn't getting what they paid for if they don't have the proper television.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that if I bought a PS3, I'd also have to buy a 1080p HD television (and probably a 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound system) to get my money's worth. Why play a PS3 on a dinky blurry cathode-ray tube television?
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Actually, there's little reason to own a 1080p TV in the first place. The human eye can't even process that much information unless you have an unreasonably huge TV or sit unreasonably close to it.
I'm often described as a Nintendo fanboy, but the 360 is, IMO, the most solid gaming platform of this generation. XBox Live is without peer in the console world or the PC world and the games are simply better than anyone else is offering right now.
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The ultimate fact of the matter is that Nintendo and Microsoft just realized what they needed to accomplish this generation better than Sony did. Nintendo realized that people do care about online gaming, and that they don't have the massive resources of gigantic multinationals like Sony and Microsoft and therefore can't really go head-to-head with them in terms of blockbuster titles and hardware specs. Microsoft realized they needed to play to their strengths (namely, X-Box Live), but also that they needed to take a page out of Sony's book and license some guys to make really compelling software. They did that by making X-Box Live an even more compelling service with things like XBL Marketplace and XBL Arcade, and then laying out the publishing dollars to the top gamemakers in the industry (Can you say 'Mass Effect'?).
Sony became so obsessed with the 'only entertainment machine you'll ever need' image that they shoved a lot of things into the Playstation 3 that a gaming machine simply doesn't need, most notably the Cell processor and the Blu-ray player. From what I've read, the PS3 is unusually difficult to program for because the Cell is so different from any previous gaming hardware (which has all been either PCs or consoles with mostly PC-based hardware), and ultimately the graphics capacities of the 360 and PS3 are nearly identical. So Sony spent all those investment dollars creating a supercomputer component that ultimately gets them squat. And as far as next-gen DVDs go, most new DVD players can upscan ordinary DVDs to high definition to the point where they look nearly identical to both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. So spending exorbitant sums on next-gen media players is essentially useless, especially since HD-DVDs and BDs cost about 10 dollars more apiece than their DVD counterparts.
Also, in reference to Matt's comment earlier, it doesn't even matter if you DO have a 1080p capable TV, because the 360 supports 1080p now as well. The only difference between the two systems as far as resolution goes is the difference between scaling the picture and rendering it natively, which is as far as anyone can tell undetectable by the human eye. Unless you're the most massive videophile in the entire world, it's basically a wash there too.
So really, I don't want to take sides in this 'war', because it's stupid, but if you're thinking about which console to buy and you want one of the two higher-end ones, get a 360. At least for right now.
And guys, I hate to be the wet blanket here but I honestly can't see why suddenly LittleBigPlanet is the coolest thing ever. I mean, it looks great and all, but it's essentially a platform with a level editor. That's not exactly revolutionary.
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Nintendo certainly got it right after the relative failure of the GameCube. The innovativeness of the Wii and the DS, along with the right price and software, is kicking the crap out of Microsoft and Sony.
I read something in either EGM or Wired recently about the PS3 and it got me thinking: the PS3 will be the greatest machine five years from now. Right now it's too advanced. It's a pain in the ass to design for. There's too much in it right now. Give it five years and it'll be incredible.
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The problem with that is that in the five years it'll take for the PS3 to be of any value, Microsoft will be close to ready to debut their next console. Aside from that, no electronics product can survive five years of mediocrity. If they don't get it together, their video gaming division is gonna be pretty fucked.
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Sony posted a two billion dollar drop (http://kotaku.com/gaming/oh-snap/playstation-biz-almost-posted-2-billion-loss-260809.php) in profit thanks in no small part to the Playstation 3. If the games division keeps operating like this it might not even see five years.
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I agree with the "PS3 is too advanced and has too much shit in it" argument. I don't have HD capability, and I don't plan on buying a HD compatible TV anytime soon because they're still too expensive for my budget. Game mags and journalists always talk about how games look like shit unless you play them on a HDTV, but I think they've lost perspective with what the common gamer has in their home.
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I'm planning on getting a HDTV later this year, but it won't be a top-of-the-line model by any means. Again, as far as anyone can tell right now, the graphics capacity of the two consoles is more or less identical.
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From a purely technical point of view the PS3 is the latest in a long long series of bets on compilers (and programmers) being smarter than they actually are.
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It's the latest in a long series of denials that game development teams are overworked and underappreciated, man. When EA buys your company and is breathing down your neck about the latest release of one of their shitty licensed games and you're already working fifty hours a week you don't have a lot of time to figure out the fucking maths puzzle Sony encased in plastic and sold to consumers.
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PC gaming is the absolute, far and away worst place for the casual gamer. It's a landscape pretty much dominated by MMOs and FPS and they really don't wander far out of that pair of genres. The selection of even viable PC games is few and far between, much less a variety of them. Pretty much everything available for PC ends up on consoles these days as the console market is exponentially larger.
You forgot the one genre that a PC absolutely owns entirely. RTS.
I don't think I've come across a decent RTS on a console.
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RTS has been kind of buried in the overabundance of MMO and FPS, lately, though. When was the last, big RTS, really?
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Command And Conquer 3?
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Supreme Commander?
Company of Heroes?
Medieval II?
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I am apparently even less versed in the presence of RTS games than I thought.
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Command and Conquer 3 has a 360 counterpart that according to every review I've read works nearly as well as the PC version. Hell, they had a N64 port of Starcraft. RTS's can be done on consoles, it just seems that most of the time development teams are too lazy to do it right.
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What I am looking forward to is the changes Microsoft are going to have to make with regards to X-box Live. The online features on the Wii and the PS3 are free (or so I hear at least) so I'm thinking that the £40 a year for live is going to be dropped soon. Which is cool because I will be buying a 360 in the near future and not paying for live would make that much better.
Also with the release of a browser for the 360 they're going to have to make it USB mouse compatible so it stands to reason that they'll make the games mouse compatible aswell. That means there is absolutely no advantage of playing an RTS on a PC over playing one on a 360.
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I don't know. I find that I've always preferred the PC for pretty much all game types. I find with consoles, you are inevitably further away from the screen than you would be if you were playing on the PC, and with games that require precision, such as RTSs, and FPSs, it is irritating not being able to see the smaller objects on the screen easily. If you are going to sit really close to the screen, and use a mouse (and thus a table) then why on earth would you be playing a 360 instead of a PC?
On the topic of the £40 fee for live: Every single person I know that has 360 or the original XBOX has paid for live, and they all agree that the fee is worth it, considering it is a small, effectively one off, fee that provides great online service that I understand is better than what the rival systems have to offer. Basically, you get what you pay for when it comes to online gaming on consoles.
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I don't know. I find that I've always preferred the PC for pretty much all game types. I find with consoles, you are inevitably further away from the screen than you would be if you were playing on the PC, and with games that require precision, such as RTSs, and FPSs, it is irritating not being able to see the smaller objects on the screen easily. If you are going to sit really close to the screen, and use a mouse (and thus a table) then why on earth would you be playing a 360 instead of a PC?
On the topic of the £40 fee for live: Every single person I know that has 360 or the original XBOX has paid for live, and they all agree that the fee is worth it, considering it is a small, effectively one off, fee that provides great online service that I understand is better than what the rival systems have to offer. Basically, you get what you pay for when it comes to online gaming on consoles.
Well, you can't hook up your computer to a 63" plasma without buying an adapter that is going to fuck with the signal in some way. Unless of course, you shilled out a few thousand for a projector and a bedsheet.
Now, to burst Oli's bubble, they're not going to magically add mouse support, I wouldn't get your hopes up if I were you. They still haven't even said anything about a browser, either. They're not going to drop the Live fee, on top of that. Why do that when they've already got a few million people already paying for it, who are willing to keep paying for it? They don't have to make any changes to Xbox Live when people are basically paying them not to.
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I'm interested to know where you have found a 63" plasma for less than a few thousand? That sounds like an amazing deal to me.
You don't need a huge monitor for PC games. My monitor is less than half the size of the wide screen TV that I play the 360 on. I still find it vastly easier to see details on my monitor than on the TV.
I think your argument would be more solid if you pointed out that TVs aren't just used for gaming, they're made for watching programs as well, and as such, investing in a good television makes more sense than getting a good monitor for your PC. But then, when you take into account the PCs ability to watch television programs, the advantage of a TV/console, as far as I'm concerned, disappear.
In the next couple of gaming generations, what I think will happen is the differences between consoles and PCs will pretty much go, the only difference will be continual upgrading vs. occasional replacement of your gaming rig.
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On the topic of the £40 fee for live: Every single person I know that has 360 or the original XBOX has paid for live, and they all agree that the fee is worth it, considering it is a small, effectively one off, fee that provides great online service that I understand is better than what the rival systems have to offer. Basically, you get what you pay for when it comes to online gaming on consoles.
I'd go one further and say it's better than any online service even on PCs. It's just all around an excellent service and well worht the price, though you do still get a lot of the benefits of the service for free anyway. I really wish Nintendo had modeled Connect 24/7 closer to it.
Also, if anyone cares, here's the sales numbers for Japan + US:
DS: 1,318K
Wii: 718K
PSP: 306K
PS2: 246K
360: 186K
PS3: 131K
GBA: 88K
If you do the math, you'll notice that the GBA outsold the PS3 in the US. The GBA. Ouch.
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Funny, I've pretty much given up on anything Nintendo will ever put out from the GC era on. Then again, I might be a tad bit biased, since at the last console launch, my brother and I were debating what console to get. My reasoning was PS2 all the way. It has RPGs which are close to the only genre I play. His reasoning was GC has Rogue Squadron!!1! Rogue Squadron has shiny graphics. Somehow my parents got us the GC for Christmas. Within about a year and a half, the GC had been sold, as the games consisted of Nintendo releases and nothing else. Once again, I wanted a PS2. Somehow we got an XBOX. At least the Halo games were good. Anyway, as of GC, Nintendo was without redeeming qualities. The company deserved to die and will never receive another cent of my money. Consequently, I am determined to hate the Wii and refuse to play it. Luckily, I pretty much fall into that PC gamer category, which means I don't have to give a damn about this console war.
(Hopefully what I typed made sense; I'm drunk. I attempted to fix any typos, but at this moment sensibility-based proofreading is beyond my capabilities.)
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Nintendo's getting really good third-party support again with the Wii Don't shrug the console off because developers were fellating the PS2 last generation.
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Well, Sony paid a lot of smaller developers to make their games exclusive, and people didn't know better at the time. Now most people have wised up and realized that the money they'll make from multiplatform sales far outstrips the vast majority of the exclusive deals Sony gave them. The fact of the matter is, the Wii has sold well enough already that third parties are snapping at the bit to make games for it. They'll show up very shortly, I guarantee it.
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In the next couple of gaming generations, what I think will happen is the differences between consoles and PCs will pretty much go, the only difference will be continual upgrading vs. occasional replacement of your gaming rig.
That statement was made just to start a fight. It failed miserably. To be honest, I'm trying to buy a monitor/hdtv in the size range of 24-27 inches to hook up all my stuff to at the same time.
As for the underlined statement, what kind of differences are disappearing? The controls will never be as easy on a PC as they are on consoles (13 buttons>105, yes I know you don't use all of them, and yes I know you can hook up controllers, but present this to someone who's never done it before and they're immediately daunted by the amount of keys and are too cheap to buy a controller). Also, there are far too many good games that are only on consoles for me to ignore them, I doubt that's going to change much either.
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The fact of the matter is, PC gaming is now a marginal niche. I'm not going to say it's dying or anything crazy like that, but if you look at the numbers: Last year, console software and hardware generated 12.5 billion dollars, while PC software didn't even crack 1 billion. Publishers are following the money and therefore there are just more games on consoles that PC owners don't get. If you're a huge MMO or RTS guy or a FPS elitist, then yes, you'll want a PC, but most people aren't that discriminative of what games they want.
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Don't try telling that to a PC Elitist. Last time i said that while chatting, I swear I felt the attempt to kill me through the internet.
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I consider myself a PC gamer now. Good games for the PC tend to be better made than the best games for the consoles. Reasons being that the best games for consoles tend to be incredibly short and lack online supply or a control scheme that's acceptable.
Am I an elitist? Hell fucking no. I just don't have any desire to own a Wii, X360, or PS3 at the given time. There is literally dick for games I want, nothing I'd turn to again in 5 years and still enjoy playing.
Once Super Smash Bro.s Brawl comes out, however, I will be getting a Wii.
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I would buy a Wii if I could find the damn thing anywhere. I'm hoping that I luck into one of those situations like I had with the DS Lite, where they were impossible to find for awhile, but I randomly stopped into a GameStop one day while bored and they had just gotten some in.
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The rise of consoles makes me rather sad :(
a) I don't watch TV, so if I got one it would just be for playing games
b) I carry my laptop most places, so I much prefer to be able to play on it.
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I would buy a Wii if I could find the damn thing anywhere.
What we did, and this sounds like a far more painful process than it actually is, was just phone Best Buy and ask "When do you guys get your Wii shipment in?" They told us every second Friday was when the consoles got sold. My brother just went and waited outside Best Buy, where he was handed a little ticket that entitled him to a Wii and that he had to use within an hour. He just got the system and got out because it's not like Wii games are hard to come by.
It sounds like a pain in the ass, but even if it actually was it'd be worth it.
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My recommendation: everyone should make nice with one person at your local retailer. That is, guaranteed, the only reason I got a Wii on launch day. My old roommate's worked at a Gamestop for the past year or two and I gave him the reserve money and he put it down in my name the split second reserves became available. Reserves ended up selling through within a couple hours at his store. Given, this doesn't work when the console you're looking for is put out by a company that routinely overestimates their initial shipments *coughSony*, but it worked out well for me. Johnny C's method is really your best bet for getting one right now. A lot of retailers release them on Sundays, as it's flyer day and if they put it in there, they want to have some on hand so they can at least say "We had them, but they sold out."
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I was lucky getting my Wii. The wal-mart nearby accidentally put them out on a thursday morning. I was there looking fer some supplies, and there half a dozen of them were. Ran home, grabbed my jar of stashed money, and bought it.
Still ned to get LOZ:TP fer it...
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Nothing accidental about that, it's just what Wal-Mart does.
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I'm interested to know where you have found a 63" plasma for less than a few thousand? That sounds like an amazing deal to me.
You don't need a huge monitor for PC games. My monitor is less than half the size of the wide screen TV that I play the 360 on. I still find it vastly easier to see details on my monitor than on the TV.
I think your argument would be more solid if you pointed out that TVs aren't just used for gaming, they're made for watching programs as well, and as such, investing in a good television makes more sense than getting a good monitor for your PC. But then, when you take into account the PCs ability to watch television programs, the advantage of a TV/console, as far as I'm concerned, disappear.
In the next couple of gaming generations, what I think will happen is the differences between consoles and PCs will pretty much go, the only difference will be continual upgrading vs. occasional replacement of your gaming rig.
I have a 22" high def monitor that my 360 and computer are hooked to. The 360 used to be hooked to my 27" tube based tv. The only reason I don't move it back is because I can my level on the monitor, and laziness. The tv has HORRIBLE picture, and is still e^100 times better that the hi def 720p monitor with high def 360 input... compared the 480 for the tv with composite inputs. PC games are ALWAYS slower than console games without MUCH better hardware. It's pretty basic. If you run windows, and you don't have a firewall running, you're ridiculous, unless you have Vista, and then you can't get your games to run. Believe me, other than star craft, I can get very few games to run as well. I have a GeForce 7950 GT with a Pentium 4 with HT and 4 gig of RAM. games are still not as fluid and not as impressive as my 360. Lessay I used the mac. Okay... now I can play 4 games... as least some of them are made by bungie... so... I can shell out 2500 for a mac, or the 900 for the pc with the 600 for the monitor, or I can buy a 400 dollar xbox 360 with a 200 dollar tv. um... you're kidding, right?
consoles win by default. And yes, I love my pc. It's just not a good gaming platform.
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You created a profile just to say that? Umm...okay.
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I thought we decided that consoles were superior to PCs as gaming machines like 42 threads back...
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We have to re-decide it every thread.
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The best PC gaming platform of all time was the Commodore 64: true or false??
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False. Amiga > Commodore 64. n00b.
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Last time i said that while chatting, I swear I felt the attempt to kill me through the internet.
I don't read threads in the computer/videogame forum often, not sure why I'm reading this one, but I'm glad I did because this line is the funniest shit I've read in a while.
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Jings! Crivvens! Help-ma-bob! And many other Scottish exclamations of surprise!
Inteligent game discussion. On the internet.
I love Questionable Content.....
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I had my Wii by chance, We just saw an EB Games store and decided to see if they had the Wii and we just bought it, I don't have to buy a 360 cause I'll have a free one and I don't find the PS3 interesting enough to buy it and I can't play games on my computer, I have a crappy graphic card.
I read on Wikipedia that Microsoft will only begin to make profits with the 360 in 2008 and I read somewhere (I'm gonna put the link when I'll find it) that EB Games said that 0% of the Wii consoles had problems, 1% of the PS3 consoles had problems and 33% of the Xbox 360 had problems.
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PC gaming is the absolute, far and away worst place for the casual gamer. It's a landscape pretty much dominated by MMOs and FPS and they really don't wander far out of that pair of genres. The selection of even viable PC games is few and far between, much less a variety of them. Pretty much everything available for PC ends up on consoles these days as the console market is exponentially larger.
Actually, the PC is far and away the best place for casual gamers (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_89/499-Business-Casual). The vast majority of homes in the industrialized world have a computer, even if it is a five-year old Compaq so loaded down with spyware it takes seventeen minutes to boot. Where else can mom play a few rounds of bejewled or junior play Lifesavers Pool or whatever's on PopCap? Kids hanging out in the computer lab at lunch aren't going to play Gears of War; they're going to dig up a flash game on Newgrounds. While there are certainly console casual games (Wii Sports/WiiPlay being the most recent obvious examples, but XBox Live Arcade's offerings also being notable), PCs have vastly more penetration, due to their other, 'productive' uses.
I think you have a different definition of 'casual gamer.'
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You're working off a flawed perception of the term. The generally accepted definition of a "casual gamer" is someone who has more than a passing interest in video games, but isn't considered "hardcore" in any particular genres. Your textbook casual gamer is the type who won't go out and play an MMO or check out the new Ninja Gaiden/Resident Evil, etc, but will pick up the yearly edition of Madden or enjoy a pickup game of Halo.
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Actually, 'casual gamer' is kind of a nebulous term now that Nintendo is trying to reach out to everyone and get them interested in videogames. Granted, the kind of stuff that sells to this new audience--your Wii Sports, your Nintendogs, your WiiFit, your Brain Training What's Its--aren't videogames in the same way that I think Resident Evil 4 or the upcoming Smash Brothers are 'traditional' videogames. Yet they still are.
The PC is a shockingly good platform for casual gaming because of all the simple, free games you can find online. Even stuff that costs money can be easy to pick up and play, like Bejeweled clones or most of PopCap's games.
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Hey, Tommy, if the Wii is the first console you've ever purchased, it might be worth your while to get some old GameCube games, then. See if you enjoy them.
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Well, if you enjoyed RE4, there was the RE1 remake for Gamecube and Resident Evil 0, which I assume is some sort of prequel but I honestly know nothing about. Also, Eternal Darkness. It's 5 years old now so it looks a little dated, but it's still got a level of atmosphere that no other game I think has matched since. No other survival horror game has a meter measuring how fucking insane the stuff you're encountering is driving you, much less a meter that actually starts to affect how you perceive the game. As your sanity goes down, walls start becoming covered in blood and portraits start turning into scenes of murder and shit. It's mindbending and at the top of the short list of games-as-art in my mind.
Other good games for the Gamecube not involving Mario or Zelda:
Metroid Prime 1 and 2
Soul Calibur 2
Killer7 (apparently, I never played it)
Viewtiful Joe
Timesplitters 2
F-Zero GX
Wave Race: Blue Storm
I also think all 3 Prince of Persia games were released on Gamecube as well, but go ahead and skip 2 because it was badly marketed to the point of idiocy. They threw Godsmack on the soundtrack or something equally ridiculous, made his hair longer, added a scantily clad female villain, and so on. You might like Tomb Raider Legend and Gun, but those are a bit harder to recommend because, well, they aren't as good the ones listed above.
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And, honestly, it might have Mario in it, but Smash Brothers is the funnest shit ever.
If you have any friends at all, it's worth every penny.
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I'm your friend, Thomas.
As for other Gamecube games: you should go buy Wind Waker as soon as possible. If you're not so immature that you think it looks "too kiddie!!" then you'll love it like I do.
Also, the Paper Mario for Gamecube is good or great.
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Super Paper Mario is great or better.
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Yeah, the Gamecube Paper Mario game is definitely the worst of the three, but they're excellent games, so that's sort of an unfair distinction.
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And if you end up enjoying the latter two, the original Paper Mario was released on the Virtual Console this week.
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I want this cake! (http://today.reuters.com/News/ArticleBlog.aspx?type=technologyNews&w1=B7ovpm21IaDoL40ZFnNfGe&w2=B82x9Ksc5UNVzDjpITcIrRbi&src=blogBurst_technologyNews&bbPostId=B683gnx3PXCGB4KlXV3b8QsKCz3VcEoUVbeO9Cz4JE08snfkf8&bbParentWidgetId=B9TtxIkobbLVBgDsLF1sak8)
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I am pretty happy that the PS3 is getting the spanking it deserves in the sales figures. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fanboy of any particular platform, but also that I hate Sony's increasingly arrogant and inept flailing.
Anyway, my contribution to the PC/Console debate is this: I play FPSes, RTSes, MMOs, some RPGs and some 3rd-person shooters/whatevers on the PC. I play sports, fighting, racing, 3rd-person shooters, RPGs, brawlers, platformers etc on the consoles. Up until the other day I owned one of each of the past gen consoles (traded the xbox and some games for a DS Lite) and will probably wind up getting at least the Wii and the 360. I have totally written the PS3 off until it becomes something approaching a good investment of my money.
With all of these purchases I'll still upgrade my PC so that I can continue to play the latest PC games, because it just doesn't feel right playing certain types of game on a console. I know that other people don't seem to have this problem though, and good for them.
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My Nintendo fanboyism ended when I bought a PS2 three years ago. Console wars are stupid, there's no reason why the 3 companies currently in the business can't coexist. The only good thing about the constant atmosphere of competition is the pressure on the console-makers to produce excellent first-party games. I will say that the PS3 will be a substantially better investment if their holiday lineup turns out to be as good as it looks. Whether or not I'll finally give in largely depends on whether or not there are 60 GB models left, and/or whether or not the new 80 GB model will still be 600 dollars. The decision to buy a 360 at 400 was a difficult one for me a year ago, but I'm not going to pay 600 dollars for a console, full stop. The entire reason consoles are chosen over PCs by most people is because the monetary cost is much less, and Sony seems to have lost track of this.
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I have several points to make here, each combating specific fallacies used in this discussion.
The PS2 was HORRIBLY undersold, until something magical happened. DVD's broke through and became mainstream. At that time the $300 ps2 was the cheapest fullscale stutterless DVD player out there. To get a good progressive scan DVD player back then was gonna cost you about what buying a ps3 costs now.
Sony did do something either really smart or really stupid, Personally I think they aren't as dumb as they appear. When the PS2 came out there was a backlash against sony back then as well. It paid off in the end. XBox only does HD-DVD so far, PS3 does Blu-ray. HD-DVD is the better of the two formats RIGHT NOW. but NOT next year. How long was it until the DVD reached the limit of it's capacity? 6 months? Blu-ray has alot longer life span before they have to make 3 Blu-Ray disc "Special Editions" HD-DVD as of today can barely contain full 1080p resolution full feature with 2 hours of extras. Blu-Ray? You get that 1080p, and you can also get the entire special features on it (hours upon hours upon hours, why do I get the sinking feeling that it's going to be Quintin Tarintino and George Lucas that will push the boundries of that aspect?) As well as a FULL game + a fuck ton room for alot of other shit. Blu-Ray will win out in the end, because of ease of use (Go buy a season of any TV show on HD-DVD you'll still end up with more than one DVD to sort through, where as it'll all fit on ONE FUCKING BLU-RAY!) Scalability, and the simple fact that not just Sony but alot of other Hollywood studios are behind it.
Next one, "PC games are becoming a niche market", I would have no issue with this but I didn't see a j/k after it.
Are you serious? REALLY SERIOUS? PC's are the only platform to play the most engaging to play and watch competitive games. Yes I know CGS has DOA and Project Gotham in it (yes xbox again ftw) BUT, Have you watched a PGR match? Short boring, no upsets, who takes the lead in the beginning keeps it, you get one chance to pass and if you miss you can't get there the rest of the match. Yes the skill level is amazing, but it's disinteresting after the first 30 friggan seconds, the rest of the match is just waiting for the win to be sealed.
The "REAL competitive video game" I speak of is of course Counter-Strike: Source. Though the community is a bit elitist (but what "niche community" that is being forced into the mainstream isn't? Remember how the internet was a few years back? You probably don't remember the communities back then. But you follow their lead. Emoticons, netspeak, 13375|>34|<, IM, BBS/Forums video games, CG animation, yeah blame those elitists back then for all that.) Now there's the emergence of a new professional sport, though the pay isn't as high as it's more "physical" brethren it will get there. Video games are coming of their own, you get to sit and watch it pass. But console games will NEVER be as competetive as PC games. The skill level isn't there. Yeah, the best and the worst in the world at a console game have a huge skill gap between them, but they are BOTH hampered by the controller, the Wii's controller is slowly getting to the intuitive and accurate nature of the PC's Mouse//keyboard.
This gap, if it can be called that it's more like a chasm, between skill levels for PC and Console Controller. There's a reason why bungee // microsoft don't allow for cross platform play. It's not a "compatibility issue" it's an "ownage" issue. Any halfassed decent pc player would STOMP the everlasting FUCK out of your random average XBL halo player. And of course there would be plenty of PC gamers out there willing to roast servers and clear them out for halo console players. (I myself would be one of them, if Halo 2 was crossplatform.) Anywho I'm losing my train of thought I figure I should trail off here....
No point, yes I made a forum account to post in this thread. Eh....
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Because everybody cares about Counterstrike in this day and age. And everyone makes their video game purchasing decisions based on which platform has competitions. Pro gaming is a big, big deal and everybody pays attention to it.
Now I will give you a 'j/k'.
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Oh, yeah. Professional gaming sure does represent the mainstream.
The needs to be an emoticon making the jacking off motion. Just to emphasize that I feel like being an internet fuckwad at that post.
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Besides, the whole 'mouse-and-keyboard-are-superior' argument makes no difference because when you are playing a console game everyone else is using a controller too. I'm not quite sure why this is a point in favor of PCs at all, but people seem to act like it is.
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Ok, then how's about this, there has YET to be a console game yet that can match the sales of Half-Life 1 yeah, that's a 10 year old game. Not to mention the fact that HL2 has out sold the better portion of the xBox catalog. But that MAY just be me. And oh, pro gaming IS mainstream now, it's televised and it's got a LARGE viewership.
http://www.thecgs.com/
But don't take my word for it.
-Levar Burton
And if you are going to hold to the line about "Not everyone decides game purchases based on the competitive playability." Isn't that the point of the whole concept of a "game" that it's competitive, so if a "game" is good enough to be played for money wouldn't that also TEND to SUGGEST that it is itself a "good game"?
Wait, how did my 2 cents worth turn into someone flaming me? So in response to your flame, go fuck yourself.
The whole 'mouse and keyboard are superior' argument makes a BIG difference, why the FUCK do you think Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo spend MILLIONS to attempt to come close in a console form the intuitive grasp most people have of the mouse and keyboard? Why is the Wii doing so well? because the "learning" the controller isn't as hard as well the xbox. Yes the xbox controller is a piece of work, it should be immortalized in the Museum of Modern art, but it still, takes ALOT of time to learn it, and use it well. Most people already know how to use a keyboard and mouse, and can pick that up pretty quickly, it's the finesse that takes the learning on the PC.
Console is superior for such things as Guitar Hero, Fighting games, racing games (unless you buy the logitec force feedback steering wheel), and RPG's (not MMO's mind you). BUT, the RTS and FPS genre's should be left to the PC, the control just isn't there on the console.
So to sum up:
You're an asshole who started flaming for no apparent reason, you parrot back what I said then mock it, good debate method. (Storm Rider and Ozymandias that is)
Professional Gaming IS coming into the main stream, notice my points as to that (http://www.thecgs.com/) there's already alot of sponsor money in this gig, more than baseball started with.
You ignored my mention of why the Playstation 3 may or may not pull a Playstation 2 (becoming a less expensive HD movie player with more features than other ones, just like the PS2 did with DVD's)
Counter-Strike (and Counter-Strike: Source) are in the top 5 played online games, also among the best selling games ever. PC games sell more copies than console games, THAT's a FUCKING FACT.
You're an asshole that started flaming for no reason.
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So sales determine whether a game is the best or not?? I don't think so. Half Life 1 and 2 are great games to be sure, but I would hardly call them the best ever. I think you have a very skewed perspective as someone who mainly games on PCs and is hardcore about Counter Strike.
Also, what's this shit about the PS2 being undersold?? It sold a fuck lot when it first came out, and then kept going, despite having no good games because everybody expected good things were coming AND it was a cheap DVD player, as you mentioned. The PS3 has some good games coming, but it's still too stupidly expensive to get people into either it or blu-ray DVDs. The PS3 is barely less expensive than a modern blu-ray player, while the PS2 was significantly less expensive than concurrent DVD players. I believe at this point the PS2 has outsold the PS1, and that's saying a lot.
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To aeMaeth:
Essentially, most of that was just outright misleading bullshit.
The PS2 was NOT undersold. Where you're getting that insane notion is beyond me. The PS2 was so largely hyped that it killed the Dreamcast before it was even released. It was the fastest selling console in gaming history. It would have sold even more units early on if they hadn't completely fucked their production rate.
I'm curious why you even mention Progressive Scan capable players, as the original PS2 model didn't even have that capability. Also, using the term "fullscale" is a bit disingenuous. The PS2 was, at its core, an utterly shitty DVD player. The reason Nintendo has, to this day, not included DVD playback in a console is that the drivers tend to shorten the console's lifespan.
Another HUGE flaw and hole in your argument is that DVD had absolutely zero competition. DVD was destined to be huge and Sony had the foresight to jump in at the ground floor. There was absolutely no argument for VHS over DVD: DVDs were cheaper to produce, did not deteriorate like VHS, were all digital, held significantly more capabilities, smaller storage, etc... Unless the marketting was botched beyond recognition, DVD could not fail.
Meanwhile, HD-DVD and Blu Ray are a race that's still too close to call. Studios keep flip-flopping between the two and neither is apt to have the runaway success of DVD in the next five or so years. Hell, DVD's likely not even going anywhere for at least that long. An HD-DVD player or Blu Ray player is just too expensive to rationalize the comparatively minimal technological jump from DVD to the new formats as opposed to VHS to DVD. Sure, it looks prettier and holds more info, but it's basically the difference between VHS and HQ VHS: minimal to the average consumer. It'll be years yet before either catches on, if one of them does at all. In the time it takes for either to be close to cracking the standard def DVD market, something better will likely come along and blast them both to shit.
Everyone else seems to have, quite expertly, dashed the rest of your argument to bits, so I'll leave well enough alone there.
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As for PC games selling more than console games-
Find the game that sold the most copies on this list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_games)
(Here's a hint: it's not in the PC section)
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Ok, but that's because it's Mario. C'mon man, what's going to beat Mario?? If you look at the PC section though it seems like a lot of games on there have higher numbers than the non-Mario (and Pokemon) games on consoles.
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Mario and Pokemon beat out The Sims (which is hardly 'professional gaming...'), but then there's a huuuuuge gap between the Sims and Starcraft that contains more Mario, Pokemon, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, and Nintendogs.
By the time you get to Half-Life 1, as this fine gentleman keeps hyping, you've passed the entire top 20 best selling console games of all time.
Also, it's worth a look up at Halo 2's or Goldeneye's sales. Now look at Half-Life 1's.
8 million for both! Shocking proof that PC gaming is kicking console gaming's ass.
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There's also the sales figures for earlier this year.
Consoles - $4.8 Billion (not sure if this includes rentals)
Handhelds - $1.7 Billion (not sure if this includes rentals)
PC - $970 Million (not including some sales, or subscriptions to games like Gametap. It is including the sales of Burning Crusade.)
That, and there has been no reason for the last generation or so for there to be anything but a graphical difference between the PC and console games gameplay wise. Especially now with the Wii-Mote making more of a simulation of the Mouse & Keyboard.
Edit: Forgot to post a link to one of several articles discussing the sales. Stuff (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/technology/23gaming.html?ex=1185336000&en=c86d1cbeb509945b&ei=5070)
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Nintendo just released some statistics about their year to date now that the June NPD figures are out and we're effectively at the halfway point. I cherry-picked a couple of the good ones:
--For the first half of 2007, Nintendo represents nearly 70 percent of the industry growth in the United States and Canada combined.
--In June alone, Nintendo has six of the top 10 best-selling games in the United States, including the top four: Mario Party® 8 and Wii Play™ for Wii, and Pokémon® Diamond and Pokémon® Pearl for Nintendo DS.
--Of the top 30 best-selling games in the United States for all of 2007, half are for Nintendo systems.
All the hardcore fanboys keep saying that the Wii is just a fad and that its huge sales will die off soon, but with Microsoft and Sony bleeding money left and right, if Nintendo can keep making modest profits on the strength of their first-party games (which they always have, even in the Gamecube days), then even if Microsoft and Sony come back and pass them in the later years of the generation, hasn't Nintendo still won in the long run?
Anyway, the biggest reason console wars are stupid (besides that there's no reason all 3 can't coexist) is that no console is perfect and if you're acting like any one hardware maker can do no wrong you're an idiot. Sony obviously has the utter lack of top-tier software and the outrageous price point, but Microsoft has the horrendous hardware failure problem, and Nintendo, no matter their strengths, are still producing games with last-gen graphics and dragging their feet on online support.
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No way. Third party developers won't ignore a platform with the Wii's install base size. Whether or not the games they do make are ones traditional gamers will be interested in is the question. I think there will be more than the Gamecube, certainly, because the Wii is rapidly approaching the Gamecube's sales for its entire five year lifespan and might get there before the end of 2007. How many more, there's no way to know. The success of Red Steel (regardless of the quality of the game) shows that there is a market for 'core gamer fare' on the Wii, and another important factor is that Wii design is much less costly than cranking out a game for the 360 or PS3 that is high enough quality to avoid getting lost in the shuffle. As such, I think that smaller developers will gravitate to the Wii simply because designing an impressive game in the HD-era is (at this point) still very expensive. The thing is, this is ultimately just more extremely shrewd business by Nintendo, because their bread and butter has always been the titles they develop themselves (they are at this point, the top-selling software publisher in all three major gaming regions), and by producing systems that don't require massive budgets for software development, they keep their costs low but their sell-through more or less the same as all their competitors, which is making them money like crazy and I honestly don't think that's going to change dramatically. Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Brothers Brawl will probably sell as well as any game not named Halo or Grand Theft Auto this holiday season, but I guarantee they both cost a hell of a lot less to make.
I think a big factor in the fate of 'core gamer' fare for the Wii is how well RE4 sells. That is a perfect example of both a high-quality port that was done with actual real consideration of the Wii controls, and an unabashedly M-rated game on a system identified as being more kid-friendly. Capcom is a large publisher, and has proven that they are willing to undertake pretty ambitious projects (Dead Rising was probably the first truly 'next-gen' game except for Oblivion). If they are willing to get behind the Wii fully on the basis of RE4's sales, I think a lot of others will follow.
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I honestly think everyone who got a Wii and is complaining about it's lack of high quality releases seems to have forgotten that every console ever made has had a terribly shitty first year. Add in the fact that no one but THQ was developing anything for it until after E3 of last year and I'm amazed it got as many good titles it's first year as it's going to.
With it's install base already nearing that of the 360's within 8 months there's no way it's not going to get more developer support. I can't imagine core games won't be made for it. I mean seriously, I doubt there's many big name developers that won't give a shit that it won't be as pretty if it makes them a boat load of cash.
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It's true. The 360 didn't get it's first really good title until 5 months after it launched, and the next one came another 5 months later. Then in all the '06 holiday season is when it really started to stack up. The Wii does have the stigma of being a year late to the party on top of being inferior graphically, so it has to fight for attention with a system that's already pretty well established. It's sort of like how the DS started out and nobody really believed it was going to do well against the PSP, and then people bought the hell out of it, so third parties followed suit. Nobody was really convinced the Wii would be a success until around March, and you figure from-the-ground-up game development takes 8 months at the very least, so I'm expecting we'll see a lot of cool Wii games at the end of this year and next spring. That'll sort of be the proving time. If people keep buying it after all that stuff hits, then I think it's established for good.
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What you guys are missing is that, even with a large install base, developers aren't necessarily going to spend the time to craft 'hardcore' experiences for the Wii when they can crap out a casual game in a short amount of time and make the same profit. Now I'm not saying this is what will happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if, say, Konami or Capcom announce games for the Wii, but instead of things like Metal Gear Solid 5 or Mega Man Legends 3, we end up getting weird, casual aimed stuff.
Honestly, though, I want a Wii just for the Virtual Console. That's the only thing so far that's totally sold me on the Wii, because I don't want to play Twilight Princess that badly, and the 'hardcore' games have yet to come out as of this writing.
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I don't see how we're missing that. Basic assumption would reason that third parties are most likely to put their best selection on the console with the largest user base. Wii will, by the end of the year, no doubt have the largest for the time being. From the largest user base springs the largest software base which brings a larger user base and it all moves in cycles from there.
Just because they can get away with casual stuff doesn't mean the companies are going to forget the non-casual audience. If they were going to avoid going to the trouble of making a deep gaming experience in favor of casual, they'd drop games for the other two in their entirety.
Look around at quotes from the industry. The biggest reason, far and away, is that comapnies underestimated the Wii's appeal. Suddenly developers are jumping on board left and right. Sega even went so far as to apologize for their earlier dismissal of the console. Hideo Kojima, the creator of the Metal Gear Solid franchise, has gone on record saying how he can't wait to test the boundaries of the Wii remote.
Problem is, all these developers were deep into production on releases for the PS3 and 360 expecting the Wii to get left in the dust.
A perfect example of this situation is the Nintendo DS. Its software library was abysmal for the first year. All of a sudden, they've got exclusive rights to the biggest franchise in Japan, Dragon Quest, for the next installment. They actually took a huge game franchise and decided to put it out on the weakest "system" currently being developed for. Why? Because it has the largest installed user base while maintaining innovation. I wouldn't be surprised to see the next installment wind up on the Wii.
Software developers like to play with pretty graphics, but they are a business first and foremost. They will go where the customers are and the customers are with Nintendo right now.
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Back to the original purpose of this thread:
June US:
NDS - 561,900
Wii - 381,800
PSP - 290,100
PS2 - 270,000
360 - 198,400
GBA - 113,000
PS3 - 98,500
Japan:
NDS - 697,000
Wii - 345,000
PSP - 162,000
PS2 - 65,000
PS3 - 52,000
360 - 19,000
GBA - 3,300
Total:
NDS - 1,258,000
Wii - 726,000
PSP - 452,100
PS2 - 335,000
360 - 217,400
PS3 - 150,500
GBA - 116,300
Not much changed in two months. DS is down a bit. PSP took a sharp turn upward. Everything else seems to have increased numbers ever so slightly.
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For those wondering the total figures, that brings Wii's total to 9.27 million units (Sold, not just shipped), 3.8 million for PS3 (Also sold, rather than shipped) and Xbox 360 at 11.6 million units shipped (Couldn't find an up to date units sold, but it would obviously be less).
Crikey. I don't know how anyone is still trying to argue that Wii is just a fad. At its current pace, it will likely have surpassed 360's current total by next month while being out for less than half the time. That's pretty damn impressive.
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I don't enjoy the Wii, because despite what people say, it's just a gimmicky boring turd. I rented it for a couple weeks with Wario Smooth Moves, Wii Sports, Zelda and RE4... I already beat Zelda TP for GC, and I must say, I liked being able to move the camera at will much more than being able to move my wrist to slash my sword. Smooth Moves is kindergarden rubbish, and RE4 plays horribly. I ended up playing Wii Sports for the most of the time..
Wii is okay if you just want to play mini-games on it with a couple friends or something... But the sad truth is it has the depth of a plastic swimming pool. You can't play real games on it. Real games require a real game-pad...
Not to mention the graphical power isn't even much more advanced than the GameCube's... But graphics don't make the game, although they would help. I really don't see what people like about this system. So far, the only person I know irl that really enjoys his Wii is mentally challenged. I don't have any of the next gen consoles... So my opinion isn't biased either.
Not worth the money. Surviving solely on the fact that it's Nintendo's latest heir to the throne.
I know it's not what the fanbois wanna hear, too bad.
kthxbai
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Besides the fact that you made a grievous error in judgment when this:
fanbois
happened, the idea that it's "only surviving because it's Nintendo's heir to the throne" is suspect when the GameCube came in behind the XBox of all things and the Wii is currently a stone's throw away from taking the lead this generation.
However, your disdain for games because they are "kindergarten", referring to something as a "turd" without irony, and commenting that only mentally challenged people you know enjoy the Wii suggest more about your maturity than the Wii's problems.
Good day sir!
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Besides the fact that you made a grievous error in judgment when this:
fanbois
happened, the idea that it's "only surviving because it's Nintendo's heir to the throne" is suspect when the GameCube came in behind the XBox of all things and the Wii is currently a stone's throw away from taking the lead this generation.
However, your disdain for games because they are "kindergarten", referring to something as a "turd" without irony, and commenting that only mentally challenged people you know enjoy the Wii suggest more about your maturity than the Wii's problems.
Good day sir!
Call me immature all you want, my points remain valid. There hasn't been very many great games for the Wii that are exclusive non-Nintendo titles. That's boring and leads me to believe that the system is hard to develop for(unless you make a game that are simple mini-game grinders). I don't see how it's doing so well. I rented it whole-heartedly expecting to be amazed. I was thoroughly let down. Maybe I look for too much depth in games, hell, maybe I'm just plain old-fashioned...
Even the Sonic title that came out a while back was reduced to a mini-game in which you guide Sonic with the wii-mote into rings... That's lame.
I don't mean any offense by what I'm saying.. If you really want to be the bigger man, explain to me how the Wii is superior to any other next-gen consoles? All I heard just now is "Back off, I <3 Shigeru Miyamoto".
Different consoles for different people, I suppose. I'll digress by saying that I don't like the 360 either(not a shooter fanatic). I haven't even played the PS3, but I'm sure it's garbage considering the titles.
I'm just sick of everyone considering the Wiii as king shit of the next-gen, when to me, it just feels like a big Nintendo-gimmick(Virtual-boy anyone?).
PS-What's wrong with the word turd? Not classy enough for ya?
Post-post-script- I consider it a gimmick. I've played it, and it really doesn't add THAT much to the experience. Hell, I can elaborate by saying that I actually prefer the standard controller to it. It'd be great if it was way more attentive... But really, it's just another way of pushing buttons when 100 different movements just = 1 animation in game. It's just mainly there to grab that attention of people considering getting a next-gen console. I will say that it does work pretty well when just being used to aim at things, though.
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I think what Ozymandias meant by his post, was that you sounded like you came in here to troll and tell those of us who are impressed with the Wii that we are intellectually on the same level as that of a mentally retarded individual. When you come into a discussion thread to actually discuss just try to use less abrasive language, or at least try and make it sound less like your calling anyone an idiot.
As for it having so few non Nintendo titles as exclusives, we already made our points about that a few comments up and it's pretty easy to confirm them with a simple Google search.
As for asking us to talk about how it's superior? That's a pretty silly rebuttal to make, since he didn't say anything at all about it being a better system than the PS3, 360 or PC. He just called you out on what he saw as you being an ass.
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Bah... I didn't say that you had to be mentally challenged to enjoy the Wii... I just said, that the only person I know who enjoys playing the wii is mentally challenged. I'm not saying it's like that everywhere, in fact, he's the only person that I'm friends with that has a Wii... I probably should've clarified that I only have 1 friend that has a next-gen system other than him, too. Most of my friends hardly play video games at all.
Anyway, I've got nothing against people who love their Wii... All I'm saying is, it's not ahead in sales because it's the superior system. There's 1000000 things that could be debated that would sway the superiority towards the PS3/360(same goes for Wii, however). The only reason the Wii has that much of a lead on them is because of how it plays(the novelty/gimmick w/e you want to call it factor), it's low price compared to the other systems helps too.
Sorry, I'm just sick of hearing "THA WII IZ THA NEXT BIG THING IN GAMING! TOTALLY REVOLUTIONIZES GAMING FOR THE BETTER!" when that's not the case at all. I've played it, it's a nice little system... But it's not that big a deal.
My apologies for coming on a little hostile.
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I love my 360. I think Microsoft did absolutely everything right with the 360's design. XBL is the single best online gaming service in the entire history of video games. That's not even hyperbole. No one, neither on console nor PC, has ever managed the service Microsoft brought to the table.
But they also took no risks with the 360. XBL was an extension of the service they already had on the XBox. The controller was a modification of the S-Controller, redesigned to perfecton. Everything was just improvement of known technology.
Sony took a risk on Blu-ray and are suffering the consequences. Nintendo took a risk on control and are reaping the rewards.
I never played Zelda on GCN, so I enjoyed the Wii version as much as I could (I thought it was rubbish for reasons completely unrelated to the controls). I can't seem to get into RE4, but I haven't tried very hard. I thought Super Paper Mario, however, was one of the best games I've played in a while, though thats also unrelated to controls.
I don't think anyone's quite grasped the full potential of the device. I think the minigame games are similar to the ten trillion minigames put on the DS when it first game out. Simple, fun ideas for the controls separate from having to put a plot or any complexity around it. The DS is only recently being used to full potential, I think.
Metroid Prime 3 will be the first full Nintendo game made specifically for the console. I think that's the first appropriate place to start fully judging the control sysem on its advantages and disadvantages.
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I love my 360. I think Microsoft did absolutely everything right with the 360's design. XBL is the single best online gaming service in the entire history of video games. That's not even hyperbole. No one, neither on console nor PC, has ever managed the service Microsoft brought to the table.
But they also took no risks with the 360. XBL was an extension of the service they already had on the XBox. The controller was a modification of the S-Controller, redesigned to perfecton. Everything was just improvement of known technology.
Sony took a risk on Blu-ray and are suffering the consequences. Nintendo took a risk on control and are reaping the rewards.
I never played Zelda on GCN, so I enjoyed the Wii version as much as I could (I thought it was rubbish for reasons completely unrelated to the controls). I can't seem to get into RE4, but I haven't tried very hard. I thought Super Paper Mario, however, was one of the best games I've played in a while, though thats also unrelated to controls.
I don't think anyone's quite grasped the full potential of the device. I think the minigame games are similar to the ten trillion minigames put on the DS when it first game out. Simple, fun ideas for the controls separate from having to put a plot or any complexity around it. The DS is only recently being used to full potential, I think.
Metroid Prime 3 will be the first full Nintendo game made specifically for the console. I think that's the first appropriate place to start fully judging the control sysem on its advantages and disadvantages.
Oddly enough, I do agree with you here. But the thing is, why should we care if they're being daring? I mean, I'm for anti-conformity as the next person... But if something works, why not just improve on that until kingdom come? There are some things that revolutionize gaming and are needed... (Ex: From 2D -> 3D) I just personally don't think the whole remote thing is needed for gaming. It's a nice little add-on... But in my opinion, it will never-EVER make or break a console.
Heck, if it was some matrix virtual-reality shit, that would be needed revolution. Until then, I'd rather we stick to Evolution.
Just my opinion.
PostScript- From my experience, the fun I've received from trying to play RE is comparable to the pain you'd receive from fucking a meat grinder. Don't touch this one for the Wii(pick it up in a bargain bin for NGC or PS2, you'll have a blast), despite what IGN says. Honestly, one second you're strafing away from a zombie, the next you're suddenly looking at the ceiling. The controls are terrible on this compared to the NGC's. Zelda's controls weren't bad, but, again, I'm not the biggest Wiimote-Nunchuck fanatic.
Modification: I'm renting the Wii again come Smash Bros. Brawl. You can't not love a SB game.
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Dude I haven't had as much fun playing a game in a long time as I did the first ten minutes playing Resident Evil 4. Motherfuckers cross me and I end them.
However you have a point in one spot, and that is that sales do not equal quality. Millions of people saw Norbit.
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You should try reading a thread before jumping into it, pretty much every one of your judgments on the Wii has been addressed and torn assunder already and I'll avoid going into detail on them, as I've already done so.
Suffice to say, sales don't generally equal quality, but it tends to lean that way on something this expensive. Sure, it's cheaper than the others, but $250 is still a decent chunk of change to most adults. Few people are going to drop that kind of money in those kind of numbers on something like that. Millions of people buy shitty albums and see shitty movies because they cost about ten bucks a pop. Ten million people are not going to go out and spend $250 plus tax on something that is reputably shit.
In terms of the minigame nature, that's been explained to death. No one expected the Wii to be a runaway success. It's actually been stated by multiple developers that it's the easiest to develop games for (With the PS3, allegedly, being a beast to develop for due to the complex and overly advanced tech). That said, it still takes time to develop quality titles. The installed userbase is already there, now that it's in place, developers are chomping at the bit to develop for it.
In terms of Resident Evil 4, you are quite obviously insane. You are the first and only person I've met who claims either of the prior versions is superior. If you can't keep the reticle straight, you're either really bad or you've got parkinson's or something. I've never, in eighteen years of gaming, encountered a more intuitive and well polished control scheme. Resident Evil 4 proved that the Wii control scheme can be used to accomplish great things and soon enough, it'll yeild results.
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Man. I gave RE4 another go. I think I just don't want to play the game for the ten trillionth time. The controls are fine, though. Fast and accurate. I love being able to aim that fast. Shoot a fucker in the head, then while he's recovering, pop a couple in his ass. Delicious.
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Exactly. That game's overall appeal and whether one is sick of it is entirely subjective, but there really is no way to say those are bad or inefficient controls. They really took what was a phenomenal game and somehow made it better.
I myself never seem to tire of it. When I first got it for Gamecube, I played through it a full four or five times before I found myself able to part with it for a bit. Then I'd still pick it up and play little bits occasionally (Until my dog ate one of the discs). As soon as the Wii edition was announced, I pretty much stopped playing so it would seem at least a little fresh when I innevitably tried it out and I was not disappointed.
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I don't know why everybody is so surprised and pissed off that the Wii ended up being aimed at casual gamers and bringing people who don't normally play games into the industry. I mean, even back when it was called the Revolution and they first showed off the controller, they were making it clear that they wanted your mom and dad to play videogames.
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The big thing for me is the price. The jump from $200/$300 consoles to this generation's $400/$500/$600 consoles means I, and many other people, are less inclined to buy the consoles. Then we have the whole PS3/360 games being $60 instead of $50 or below, and you're spending even more money on videogames that for all intents and purposes aren't worth the money because they're pretty much last gen experiences with tarted up graphics and online play.
I'm not casting doubts on Sony or Microsoft's game plans because they're going with what has worked for them in the past. However there is a point where bigger and better does not actually equal bigger and better. It's hilarious to me that both companies think they, too, can bring casual gamers onto their side even though for Average Joe Human Being, a $250 console with $30-$50 games is always going to win out over a $500 console with $60 games.
The portable wars are a whole 'nother can of worms because while Sony seems to be realizing that they can't make the PSP a genuine portable Playstation because home console experiences don't translate well/don't belong on portable gaming systems, they're also going to release a redesigned PSP that has TV out. So, yeah...
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The problem with the TV out is that a game played on the PSP will still be in the resolution meant for the PSP's screen, which would look like shit on an ordinary TV, and even worse on a bigass HDTV. That being said, I hope Sony doesn't pull a PS3 on this and jack up the price of the redesign to 250 or whatever, because if the God of War game is amazing like the other two and the ports of the first two Star Ocean games aren't broken, I'll probably begrudgingly cough up for a PSP.
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It's official:
[urlhttp://www.vgchartz.com/]The Wii has surpassed the Xbox 360 in worldwide sales.[/url] It took them less than nine full months to do it.
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(http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/08/console-sales-august.jpg)
(you're missing an equal sign there, 0b.)
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Some of my points in this post have been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but I shall repeat them with my main point. Developers want to target as many people as possible with the games that they produce, and this creates many issues. One of the most expensive things in a video game can be the art assets. This means that the common goal is to be able to use the same assets on every platform that a game is released on. With this being the case, people who buy a console want the games that they get to be pushing the boundries of the system. When making a game for the PS3 or 360 you can use the same assets because the systems are so close together in performance capabilities. But you would not want to use the same assets you use for the Wii on these consoles, because your game may appear to be dated. Now, this does not mean that games won't come out on all 3 platforms. It does mean, however, that when chosing the "low point" for the console, a developer can make the game and the assets for the 360 and then fairly easily make it work on a PS3 or PC. This is made even more easy when licensing an engine which is capable of cross platform production. It can really be as easy as changing a flag to make the game work on multiple platforms if your assets are within system limitations.
I'm not trying to say that the Wii is a bad system or won't ever see the same quality of games as other systems, I'm just trying to point out some considerations. When a developer is making a game for an adult market, like a Grand Theft Auto, they can be fairly certain that a large number of people who own a PC, 360, or PS3 and consider themselves gamers will be spread out across the 3 platforms. So when they want to make the game, and have the option to make it across all 3 and have it look like a current generation game, they will most likely take that path. This does mean though, that the Wii is a more likely target for a game when the developer is trying to hit a wide range of people with a lower production cost.
That is by far the smartest move that Nintendo made with the Wii and deciding to stay out of the console race. The system is far cheaper to produce games that look as good as first part games, and with the recent sales numbers it has a large target audience. Those does mean though, that most games for the Wii will be targeting the wide range of players. Don't expect something like Ninja Gaiden to show up on the Wii, the market of "hardcore gamers" is pretty well established in the 360 and PS3.
That is all I have to add to this conversation, I hope I have not bored anyone with my long string of thoughts.
:-D