Silent-Q.com

The console wars have gone downhill significantly.

Nintendo actually seems to have met demand so far because the Wii is actually available in quantities right now. I was walking through Costco and saw a lady with 2 of them in her basket, a sight unimaginable just last year. But Nintendo has yet to deliver a killer app. I would almost dare to venture that Nintendo is now seen as more of a toy and less of a console now.

Microsoft seems to have finally caught on. The Core system is now $200, $50 less than the Wii. You still get no HDD at that price but the $100 nearly-across-the-board price cut is definitely having an affect on sales. And with several big exclusives in Japan, they’re even making inroads there.

Which brings me to Sony. I put my money on the PS3. The main reasons were

• I used my PS2 and now my PS3 as my main video player. Amazon threw in the Bluetooth remote when I bought so it made it even better. At some point (someday) I will own a HDTV as well so I’m now set with a 1080p player
• The PS3 looks to have a longer life span than the 360
• The gi-normous PS2 library boded well for the PS3

At this point I use it mostly to watch movies. I can’t afford $60 like I used to so my purchases are a bit more important decision-wise. That said, I own 0 PS3 games on disc and I own 2 PSN download games (3 if you count the Pixel Junk Monsters Encore addon).

This is not to say that the PS3 games on the market aren’t fun. I’d love to play Ratchet and Clank Future or The Force Unleashed. But neither are good enough to move me beyond my limited budget. FF XIII is a PS3 exclusive (at least for now) but that’s a ways off. Bioshock looks nice. Pity it’s been available on PC and 360 for a year. To top it all off, Netflix offers streaming to your console box… if you own a 360 and have a Gold membership.

Sony seems non-plussed about the 360 price drop or the wildfire that is Wii. They insist that their $400 price point is still good for this year. As a console, they seem to be relegated to dead last. Which leads me to question if they’re really in the game making business anymore. The PS3 seems to be the vehicle that got Sony what they really wanted: HD market domination. The PS3 is hands down the reason that they won. Every gamer buying one was another Blu-Ray audience member. MS tried hard to promote HD-DVD but the fact that they had no HDMI or 1080p and the fact that the HD-DVD player was an expensive addon didn’t help anywhere near enough.

Faced with dwindling profits from lackluster sales initially, Sony’s first move was to cut gaming hardware. I can understand the Emotion chip being dropped but, as of this writing, none of the new PS3s on the market have backwards compatability, software or otherwise. It’s a gamble that has paid off somewhat: the $400 PS3 has good marketability. But the booming PS3 sales have not translated into improved gaming prospects either and Sony has glibly said that they expect games like Little Big Planet to carry them through the Holiday ‘08 season. Something tells me, despite LBP looking good, it’s not going to drive PS3 sales.

So either Sony is naive about their gaming or they’re content to sell Blu-Ray players disguised as consoles. Either way, it’s going to be a loong winter, possibly of our discontent.