It shouldn't be this hard to be in love—with Sony. As the console war approaches in earnest the stage is set up to become unpredictable this fall as the battle will be joined by Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PS3. Sony has been finding it hard to keep it's games and music from being ripped off illegally and they have been resorting to measures that are unpopular with their customers—not to mention pricing themselves above their market. With Sony, there is going to be in-game advertising as well as a significant rate hike in the cost of the games. On top of that they will be looking for other fees involved with their still secretive online gaming service.
The Xbox 360 came too early to the fight and didn't impress anyone with its graphics. The machines seemed to work well enough and didn't set anyone's Christmas tree on fire. The launch and the following months' sales of the new system last fall were underwelming as it became clear that there wasn't anything much "next gen" about the second Xbox. Its strong suit though is the free content, download capabilities, game demos and networking capabilities on XBox Live. That seems to be something that they have done right. Some people don't mind the usual idiosyncrasies of owning and dealing with Microsoft gadgets, so the 360 seems to suit many customers just fine. There is a broadening variety of new games coming to that platform strengthening its position.
Rumors report that developers are starting to shy away from the prima donna Sony PS3 like rats from a sinking ship. Do they smell Dreamcast in the water? Meanwhile as Sony does suicidal PR faux pas like pulling E3 apart, Nintendo has become everyone's desirable girl next door. The successes of the DS and the DS Lite have proved that Nintendo still has "it"—whatever that special cutsey something is that gives them the intuition to make characters like the Nintendogs and Mario. Nintendo seems intent on topping itself with the Wii. Weirdly named though it is, it has that ingenuous charm. If the demos of games like the new Zelda can be believed, Nintendo will have found a way to immerse us in its funky and hilarious worlds in near virtual reality. That might have been their goal since the flop of the Virtual Boy rig. Even with a price increase of $100 - $150 more than the last Nintendo console, they are still the most reasonable system out there and the most little-kid friendly. I am sure that Nintendo is counting on the fact that you can give a kid anything and they will figure out how to operate it. One again it will be the littles teaching the older gamers how to use the new thingys.
Sony has had less success with its handheld products and was forced to stop production of UMD movies. The PSP was a case where Sony was more worried about securing the PSP from home-brew games than it was on creating good new content for the sleek black handhelds. The machine was fine, it was Sony's attitude that finished it. They especially didn't want the PSP used as a web browser. Now we find that they have an additional product to perform those web functions. The new wireless Mylo is a browser, a camera and a sort of PDA hybrid. Sheesh again with the proprietary media formats - it's doomed to be another white elephant like the PSP. Just how many pockets does Sony think we have on our clothes?
While Sony shoots themselves in the foot again, Nintendo demonstrates that less is more. By giving some things away they seem to reap bigger rewards. Nintendo has built in wireless capabilities in the DS and hotspots all over the country. A reasonably priced browser and internet application will be released in Japan and the US to further enhance the versatility of the DS.
It is going to be difficult to call this battle. Sony is coming with presumably actual innovation, and powerful hardware. If what they have been touting is true then we should see some amazing things for the PS3. The PS2 was a revolution in its day I well remember. But it damn well better be amazing because for $600 the average American consumer is going to have very high expectations.
The Wii might just be selling out like hot-cakes this holiday season. If I wanted one I'd pre-order. One thing you can count on with Nintendo is shortages and pirates buying up the available units to gouge for them on eBay.
I think that the 360 will do well this fall too. The console is established now and there are enough games for it to make it worth investing in. The existing clans and organizations on Live are fun to join and word of mouth gets around having made those services popular. Sony and the PS3 will be the wild card to the outcome.
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