The Twits.

[demiurgent]

These are the twits I twitted.

• 19:34 I... god, this is so hard to type... I... think the XBox 360 is a better game and entertainment system than the Wii. Way, way better. #

Comments

[troutman.livejournal.com]

Why is that hard to type? I was under the impression that everyone already knew that.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

We're supposed to assume Microsoft is the devil. And we must destroy the devil.

Only, as it turns out, they make a damn fine game system.

[slarti.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it has been pretty shocking how, aside from the controller hugeness of the original and the relatively minor RRoD recall issue with some of the early 360s, the Xbox platform as a whole has been pretty generally stable.

[troutman.livejournal.com]

Technically, the 360's hardware is notoriously unreliable. So you can still think they're evil. But Microsoft DOES truly kick-ass on the software side of things.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Depends on what kind of games you want to play.

(Though I admit, I own none of the current generation of consoles.)

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

The newest console I own is a GameCube. I've been playing Wind Waker recently, and it's still awesome.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

It's not simply a matter of games, for any of them. They all have many vectors of entertainment.

Netflix streaming is amazing. VoD the way it should be, dagnabbit.

[oyving.livejournal.com]

I am so incredibly envious of the Netflix features you have for the Xbox 360 over the pond. None of those features are available here in Norway (I guess because we have no Netflix, and there are issues with distribution rights, etc. etc. etc.). I want video streaming too :-(

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

And, see, to me this is still an alien concept. A console is for playing games on. My multi-vector (including games) entertainment device is the PC.

[wednesday]

I find it useful to think of the 360 as a mutant kiosk PC.

[zorbathut.livejournal.com]

I actually think this year the PS3 is going to pull ahead of the pack. The Wii is going to continue to dominate the casual and classic games market, and the XBox 360 is going to flounder and lose ground.

That said, if I had to pick a console right now that I could have all of today's games for, but never any in the future, I think the XB360 is by far the most solid choice.

[troutman.livejournal.com]

What planet do you live on? Live is vastly superior as far as networking and ease of use goes. In contrast, Sony's online support looks downright spartan. And the system itself will never get a reduction in price, so the PS3 will continue to sink like a rock. Most business analysts have already declared it DOA. Sales of the PS3 went down during the holidays while the 360 went up.

The PS3 isn't a bad system. But it's obscenely expensive, and the 360 has pretty much the same game library, in addition to many more features. Sony has completely and utter lost this generation of the console war.

[zorbathut.livejournal.com]

Why would it never get a reduction in price? Hardware gets cheaper all the time. That alone makes me doubt your entire comment, I honestly can't see how that can seem like a remotely accurate statement.

Sony got a serious humbling with its original release, and is working to fix it (besides the ridiculously awful PS3 Home) while Microsoft's strategy was to position their console so it didn't have any competition. This worked great, at the time, but is leaving it with increasingly obsolete hardware with a well-deserved reputation for flakiness.

Sony's online gaming is indeed worse, but not hugely, and most people really don't care about that. The vast majority of gamers never go online. Ever. I think I've done it maybe twice, and I'm practically their target audience.

The PS3 is technically superior, and Sony's demonstrated their ability to dominate in the long haul before (see the PS1 and the PS2, both of which were "overpriced" on release but dominating by the time they left the market.) Sony designs damn good hardware, and I don't believe we're yet at the point where sheer graphical horsepower no longer matters.

On top of that, there's the Blu-Ray factor. HD-DVD is dead and buried. There are a significant number of people buying Blu-Ray players, and a significant number of people buying game consoles, and a significant amount of overlap. That means people buying PS3s.

I don't see anything exciting coming out of the Microsoft camp - they released a new dashboard, some people like it, some people hate it, but it's not really exciting in any way. They're releasing the same old games with the same old mechanics. Sony, on the other hand, is starting to push some more interesting stuff, like Little Big Planet and Noby Noby Boy.

Speaking of games, the only major franchises that Microsoft owns are Halo, Gears of War, and Mass Effect. Three (very good) shooters, one first-person and two third-person. Almost every other highly-rated game for the XBox is also available on the PS3. And they look better.

The XBox wins on multiplayer shooters. Nintendo has the (huge) casual gaming market. The PS3 picks up everything else. I think the PS3 is, in the long term, in a much better position at this point than the XBox, and besides the teenager/early-20s male-gamer-who-wants-to-blow-his-friends-up market (which is smaller than you'd expect), going to have much more notable games.

(As long as they get off their asses and pick up Braid already.)

[troutman.livejournal.com]

The PS3 is a superior piece of hardware. That doesn't mean it'll pull ahead. It will NOT get a significant price cut. Sony swears to this on a monthly basis. And there's really no universe I know of where a $400 console beats a $200 one.

Also, as awesome as LBP is, it TANKED in sales. Whoops.

[zorbathut.livejournal.com]

Have you ever known a company to say "Oh, yeah! We're totally cutting the price next month. By a lot!"

Ever?

I mean, think about what that would instantly do to the sales. The fact that they swear they won't ever have a price cut means absolutely nothing.

[troutman.livejournal.com]

Perhaps. But they still won't. They're already selling $400 consoles at a LOSS - a loss they AREN'T making up in software sales like every company is supposed to.

I know I'm coming off as argumentative, but I actually DO like the PS3. It's the best piece of hardware on the market. But the user base is small, the price is too high, and Microsoft's exclusive titles TROUNCE Sony's in sales. Blu-Ray might give it some legs, but in this generation of gaming, Sony is done. They can't make up over three years of losing.

In any event, it's all about price. Even if the PS3 gets a price cut, it still won't get into a competitive price range with the 360 Arcade's $200. Price is half the reason the Wii did so well for so long. I mean, 99.9% of Wii games are shovelware, but the price (well, and a retarded gimmick) keeps it selling like hotcakes.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

The loss is the significant point here. They weren't making money on the consoles when they were more expensive, and dropping the price as a loss leader was necessary to get machines out the door. Further dropping the price would be difficult at any point that the hardware is still anywhere close to cutting edge.

More to the point, the XBox 360 is in the exact place now that the PS2 was last generation. They were the first out, they were the first to a strong userbase, they were the first with a mature and diverse game line, and they're now a given as the platform you need to develop for if you want to make your development money back. The PS3 had a number of mis-steps along the way -- the biggest question was would they end up as this generation's XBox (significantly behind the leader but solid) or would they become this generation's Dreamcast.

As for Blu-Ray? We're seeing the apex of a technology that is itself being transitioned out. That Netflix stream on my television is the future of in-home media distribution, more than anything on a PC or Mac. There will come a day when stores won't have DVDs or Blu-Ray discs, they'll have laminated cards a la game time or points cards for the specific movies or shows, and you'll swipe or input their code into your system to download it. Every major media format had a major niche market driving its early sales into a ubiquitous presence. VHS beat Betamax because VHS would license to porn, so people who wanted their porn at home bought VHS machines, which meant that they bought their mainstream stuff on VHS too. DVD eclipsed videotape as quickly and completely as it did in large part thanks to the anime and other foreign niche markets driving imports and usage. Eventually, everyone had a DVD player. While Blu-Ray's beaten HD-DVD, it hasn't found that killer niche market that must have Blu-Ray. And, with most niche video markets going to direct download or BitTorrent, they're not likely to.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Oh, and give the Wii its due. The games that use the kinetic controller well use it well. WiiPlay, Warioware and the like are really, really fun, especially when you have a party going. A gimmick it may be, but it's an innovative and effective one.

The problem is, now every game that comes out for the Wii needs to use the Wiimote as part of its repertoire. It's like a console that plays Rock Band better than all the others requires everyone to use the guitar and drums controllers to play all the other games too.

However, of all three consoles, the Wii is the only one full on nongamers pick up and play on a regular basis. The XBox 360 and the PS3 are gamer consoles. They're incredibly fun, but they're not a casual commitment even if you consider yourself a casual gamer. Grandmothers play the Wii. Non-gamer Grandmothers, I mean.

[troutman.livejournal.com]

I find that anyone that owns a Wii plays it for a few days (usually just Wii Sports) until the novelty wears off, at which point it collects dust. The only good games for it are first-party, which is pretty much true of ANY Nintendo system in the past few generations. It may be the "it" thing to own, but 99% of its software is shit. Sure, maybe grandma plays Wii Sports when she wanders over, but the novelty wears off fast.

[petie-s.livejournal.com]

Netflix streaming cemented that decision for me. Good game demos pretty much whenever you want them isn't bad, either.

Of course, it doesn't have a viable HD movie player anymore...but that's not a huge problem for most people yet.

I know I like the 360 quite a bit.

[inkblot14.livejournal.com]

As much as we love to hate Microsoft's software products, when they get away from that arena, they seem to do pretty good. I will now proceed to ignore any mention of the Zune. The Zune just...no...just no...

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

The Zune is entirely no. At least the 30 gig models are.

[inkblot14.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's only when Microsoft tries to derive from Apple. That would cover Windows, and the Zune, and leave the XBox 360 wide open.

Mind you, if Apple ever built a game console like the XBox or Wii, the universe would probably implode.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

It'll never happen. Apple hates games.

At one point Apple developed a set of APIs to make game programming easier for Macs. It was unceremoniously canned. The rationale was that they didn't want the Mac to be thought of as a "toy" (meanwhile, PC gaming was in full swing and already clearly driving sales).

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

The 360 has been getting most of my play-time lately (though I have been putting in time on WiiFit, as well as Mario Kart, and we just borrowed Boom Blox from a friend).

I'm happy to have both, but I think you might be right.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Have you tried Test Drive Unlimited? I thought that was quite awesome.

(Also, Forza Motorsports 2 is the latest videogame hardware generation's Gran Turismo, whatever Gran Turismo #whatever might think.)