Personally, I think we can call it right now, but it won’t be “official” until all of the Christmas sales numbers come in.
The Wii and the Xbox 360 will be the neck and neck frontrunners for this entire console generation. They cater to different enough crowds that they can coexist as the frontrunner. But there are a few key things I see happening the holiday season that will cement this symbiotic relationship:
Many of the Wii’s releases catering to the “hardcore gamer” will prove to be big hits, making the analysts shut up about that non-problem. Super Mario Galaxy, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (the Wii Zapper is supposed to be awesome), Manhunt 2 (purely for curiosity’s sake) and continued sales of Metroid Prime 3 will keep everyone happy. I also think the Wii version of Guitar Hero 3 will be a hit with gamers and non-gamers alike.
Of course, Nintendo’s victory dance will come in the form of the Super Smash Bros. Brawl juggernaut in February. After February 10th the system won’t be able to be stopped.
The Xbox 360 will continue to sell games at a ridiculous pace. BioShock, Halo 3, Guitar Hero 3, Call of Duty 4, WWE 2008, Mass Effect and more will be under a lot of Christmas trees this year. The 360 is hitting all of the big genres just like the PS2 was last generation and it’s almost built enough momentum to be uncatchable. The holiday sales numbers will clinch it in the eyes of developers and analysts.
Finally, the PS3’s slow sales numbers this holiday will put it squarely in the GameCube spot this generation. A few decent exclusives, but purely a second system for the vast majority of it’s owners.
And by the time Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII (which might not ship until 2009) come out, it will be too little too late.
This is all very interesting (seriously). I haven’t considered myself a gamer in years, not since we had a NES and SNES. I still love all the classic games for those systems. But my brother has a PS2 and a Gamecube, and I admit I still get a kick out of the Square-Enix RPGs whenever I see them.
I could be completely wrong here, but from my experience Final Fantasy is one of those games that has an absolute RABID following among hardcore gamers, but lacks broad appeal. I’ve played Final Fantasy once and honestly got sick of it within the day. Nobody I know with a PS2 bought any of the Final Fantasy games. Not a single casual gamer I know has expressed any interest in the Final Fantasy series. I myself (who I would characterize as a casual gamer at BEST) don’t know a damn thing about the Final Fantasy series.
I guess I just really don’t see Final Fantasy being the force that many seem to think it is. I don’t know a SINGLE person, however, that has NOT purchased at least ONE Grand Theft Auto game.
As for myself, I’ll probably wait until GTA:IV comes out and buy the console that everyone says it runs the best on, then get the other system “must haves.” I don’t play all that much anyway.
I really hope that Nintendo, and especially third party developers, don’t completely fumble the position that they have with the Wii right now. I’m nowhere near as optimistic as many other system owners - there really aren’t many promising titles on the horizon at all other than Mario Galaxy and Smash Brothers, which it seems like way too many people are banking on being killer apps. I mean, they both look great, but what then?
The PS3 has proven to be completely hopeless, barring some sort of massive price cut that doesn’t involve removing things like backward compatibility (literally the stupidest decision I think I’ve ever seen a company make); I’ve bought more new PS2 games in the past six months than for any other system. This bums me out greatly, as I’m mostly a “PS” gamer - I love JRPG’s, Atlus games, quirkier titles, and generally don’t get into cutesy games, FPS’es, and Sports titles. I’m afraid that with the PS3’s utter failure, the whole video game marketplace is going to return to that weird pre-Playstation state.
Regardless, it’s way too early to declare one console the winner; I think that the next Grand Theft Auto game (when’s it out now, spring '08 if we’re lucky?) will be a major deciding factor. Everyone knows it’s going to run better on the PS3, but that won’t be enough, as more people will be swayed by the 360’s better selection, lower price, and downloadable content. When the next GTA pushes a ton of people toward the 360, I say it’s truly the beginning of the end for the PS3.
I just don’t see how Square/Enix can stay with Sony if the PlayStation 3 languishes in third place. There’s money to be made out there. If they somehow retroreleased all the Final Fantasy titles for the 360, I’d hop all over it that day.
I agree with what seems to be the underlying theme: wait for the Christmas sales. Another part of me says that Sony will keep a big edge in Japan. The edge that Microsoft maintains here is equal to the edge that Sony has in Japan. It’ll settle at that for equilibrium until one party comes out with a slew of amazing games, neither will get knocked off their perch.
You know, I want to play Metal Gear so damned bad, but I’ll never own a Sony product again. It hurts. This is me pouting.
Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit (you know some company is going to juryrig a skate/snowboarding game with the balance board and it will be awesome) and Star Wars: Force Unleashed (multiplatform, but the Wii version includes the Lightsaber duel mode).
Yes, I could have written this whole paragraph. Where are all the JRPG titles going to go without the PlayStation for a home? Nobody in Japan cares about the 360, and Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata don’t appear to be changing that. But I can’t see them flocking to the Wii either, after the absolute dearth of such games on the 'Cube. I could envision the big franchises moving to the handheld world (with Dragon Quest leading the way), focusing on re-releases and spinoffs, and essentially just waiting it out until the next round.
How about Metal Gear Solid 4, the other PS3-only potential savior?
My brother is one of those people. He adores his Wii, and is convinced that Mario Galaxy and Smash Brawl will sell as many copies as Halo 3 and cement the Wii’s dominance. Of course, a lot of people’s hopes were resting on Metroid Prime 3 to do the same thing. I’m just not sure how large the market is for gamer-oriented, “non-novelty” games on Wii.
They’ll go the same place any game developer goes: where the money is. There wasn’t much money in Gamecube development so there wasn’t a lot of third party development. Why wouldn’t they see the Wii as viable platform?
If we’re looking foward to the Christmas season sales I think the Wii is going to blow them all away hands down. Again this has to do with who the systems target audiences are.
Xbox360 and PS3 are more technical systems for the high school, college dorm, 20-30 something gaming guy. If he wants one of these systems chances are he already has one or is going to buy it with his own money whenever he wants to.
Why would the Christmas season affect this?
The Wii on the other hand is focusing on the kids and family. It’s what Jimmy and Janey want under the tree this year. It’s the present for the whole family. It will be bought as a seasonal gift and given as a seasonal gift. Watch the sales climb and the shortages begin again as we get closer to Xmas.
The capabilities of the hardware factor into it as well. Square’s big-budget, FMV-heavy titles wouldn’t have fit on a 1.5 GB GameCube disc. Now the focus is on blending the pre-rendered cinemas and the real-time gameplay graphics, and the Wii just isn’t powerful enough to do what they want to do. On the other hand, maybe a shift away from the focus on next-gen graphics wouldn’t be such a bad thing!
I think that the loss of the GTA exclusivity for Sony will end up being the deal breaker overall. I’m also a very casual gamer, I mostly play used titles once or twice a week, etc. My primary system is the Xbox. The only reason I got a PS2 was to play the GTA games, and when it’s time for me to upgrade to a newer system the fact that the newest GTA will be available right away and it won’t be some reverse engineered clunker modified to run on the “other” box means that I’ll be sticking with Microsoft.
there really aren’t many promising titles on the horizon at all other than Mario Galaxy and Smash Brothers
Off the top of my head…
Zack & Wiki
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
Wii Fit
NiGHTS
Soul Calibur Legends
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
Mario Kart
Fire Emblem
Animal Crossing
Rygar
Third parties are flocking to the Wii like crazy; we’re going to be seeing a wealth of Wii software in 2008.
He adores his Wii, and is convinced that Mario Galaxy and Smash Brawl will sell as many copies as Halo 3 and cement the Wii’s dominance.
Mario Galaxy will easily sell as many copies as Halo 3, and Smash almost certainly will as well. They won’t start out with the megaton explosion of sales that Halo 3 did, but they’ll start off very strong and remain strong for the entire life of the system.
As for the “Just wait for FFXIII/MGS4” thing… I have a couple problems with that.
The first is that people were saying the exact same thing about Heavenly Sword and Lair. Now it’s Rachet & Clank and Uncharted. The PS3 has all of these upcoming games that people think has the potential to drag it out of third place.
But that’s not going to happen because of the second problem. One popular and stellar game simply does not get people to buy consoles that had been languishing previously. It hasn’t ever worked that way, and I really doubt it’s going to start now. What’s far more likely is that developers looking to increase their profits are going to want to do ports to systems that people actually own.
In America, I’m going to go with…
PS3: 15%
Xbox 360: 30%
Wii: 55%
The Wii has already passed the 360 in worldwide sales, and all signs point to the Wii remaining massively popular. At any rate, it’s clear that there is absolutely no way that any console will surpass the Wii, and it would take a miracle for the PS3 to topple the 360 at this point (and I mean something on the level of Microsoft suddenly deciding to scap support for the console and get out of the industry altogether).
As time marches on and gamers get older, they’ll turn towards the offerings of Microsoft and Sony from Nintendo. The Wii is an entry into the console wars. Their next step is the important one. They’ve already made the decision to forego high definition graphics. Eventually, they have to go that way.
Yes, they do.
All in all, I knew Nintendo still had it in them. I’m proud and keeping an eye open on their upcoming titles. For the record, I have a low desire for Smash Brothers. It’s a fun game, but it’s not going to make me buy a Wii. You know what eventually will?
Ditto. I have a PS2 and was about to buy an XBox360 for GTA4 until they delayed it. I still might buy an XBox360 when the cheaper edition comes out soon, especially if I have some assurance the red ring of death is less likely.
Don’t care much about Halo3, it’s neat looking but I don’t like first person shooters on a controller.
There is really no reason for me to want a PS3 right now, other than the fact they’re supposed to be nice machines.