The Console Wars

[jwtemp]

Looks like the console wars begin in earnest today. The Xbox One looks pretty impressive, although I'll reserve final judgment until I see the launch lineup at E3.

The Wii U is a total disaster and the PS4 is vaporware at this point. I was not excited about the next generation of consoles at all - until now. Microsoft has not been idle, it seems, and it showed in their presentation today.

What say ye gamers? Which system are you the most interested in?

[StarsMine]

How is the ps4 vapor ware? I dont understand that comment
And I would not call the wiiU a failure yet, people are being way to preemptive with their judgement. It has already sold 3.5 million units. Stop comparing it to the wii sales like thats the measuring stick. That like complaining someone cant run a 4min mile.
TBH I find the name xbox one to be a bad name... its the third xbox not the first. (wiiU isnt good either)

[jwtemp]

The PS4 has yet to be shown beyond a page of hardware specs, a controller and some blurred flashes of the console in a teaser trailer. Vaporware is exactly what the PS4 is at this moment - an announced product with next to nothing shown. As it stands, the PS4 doesn't exist to the general public.

Sorry, the Wii U is the first console in a long time that didn't sell out and stay sold out for weeks after its launch. When the 360 and PS3 launched, and the Wii as well, you couldn't get one for less than a 100% markup on eBay or Craigslist. The Wii U came out last November, just before Christmas, like every console in the last generation, and stock was available up to and after Christmas. That's a flop in today's entertainment market, no matter how you slice it. They have nothing compelling coming out anytime soon. They're relying on a gimmicky controller, yet again. They're planning on re-hashing yet another generation of first party titles and won't have third party support after the PS4 and One hit store shelves. Their hardware is behind, yet again, and will be this entire generation of games.

The consumers have spoken. The Wii U will be lucky to break even in terms of R&D and hardware sales losses.

[StarsMine]

The wiiU distribution is different then any console before.
They stopped with the biweekly shipments and do two a week. Thats why they are not sold out.
They also like with the wii and unlike with microsoft and sony make a profit off each console. To break even for them is far easier.
You needed to buy at least 5 extra games for microsoft/sony to make a profit off of your console. Nintendo, none. And the wiiU owners have bought more game per capita then the wii did at this time, then the 360 did or the ps3.
They have the third party support, what they DONT have is the media support that sony and microsoft have. The console itself while yes is weaker then the xbox one and ps4 is still more powerful then previous gen, and due to the fact that both the ps4 and one are using very similar gpu archetcure ports are easier then ever.

That is also not how vaporware works. The design of the box does nothing for hype or whether or not your going to purchase one. Sony knows that. Its also not something that needs designing until near release anyways. Hell when the 360 was first announced it had no box to look at. All you had were the devkits that were built out of Macs.

[jwtemp]

Nintendo has third party support? Yeah, maybe for porting games over from the current (and soon to be previous) generation to their already-behind-the-times console. What developer is going to pay a team millions of dollars to develop a version of their title for the Wii U when the Wii U isn't selling? I'm telling you, everyone I know who bought a Wii hardly ever played it, myself included. I finished a single game on the system. One. And even that game was marred by the gimmicky as all Hell controllers and awful motion control capabilities of the system. Playing the Wii by yourself is as frustrating as trying to fuck a cactus, imo, and is literally only fun when you play some goofy, dumpy party game with a bunch of people in your living room.

Consumers are smart. The Wii was a massive success because it was a gimmick that worked. But the Wii taught them a lesson and they're looking at the Wii U and asking themselves, is this really worth it? They're not buying the Wii U because they don't need/want another gimmicky device that's going to turn into a Netflix machine in six months time, then collect dust when they start watching Netflix on one of the other fifty devices that supports it. They're not interested in a gaming system that plays games they played last year on their 360/PS3/PC. The system has a proprietary drive that does nothing other than play games - how hard would it have been to slap a Blu-ray drive in that plays movies too and call it a day? And consumers don't want an outdated proprietary game system. They want the new hotness, the PS4 and the 360, systems that are going to enable their entire home entertainment experience to be controlled from one machine.

We could argue about it all day long. I think the numbers clearly show, and analysts and industry experts agree, the Wii U has not seen any real success yet and isn't going to. Time will tell, and I personally believe it will tell that Nintendo's direction was a mistake.

'Vaporware' was obviously a strong term to use, but I stand by the fact that we know nothing about the PS4 at this point other than it has a new controller with a touchpad. The system's design might not matter to you, but it matters to me, as does the GUI and how I interact with the entertainment the system presents to me. I know what to expect from the Xbox today, as I was shown both the console and the OS's UI. I've seen precisely zilch from Sony on either front. Perhaps E3 will change my opinion, but as it stands, Sony has some catching up to do in my book.

[acolyte_to_jippity]

Looks like the console wars begin in earnest today. The Xbox One looks pretty impressive, although I'll reserve final judgment until I see the launch lineup at E3.

The Wii U is a total disaster and the PS4 is vaporware at this point. I was not excited about the next generation of consoles at all - until now. Microsoft has not been idle, it seems, and it showed in their presentation today.

What say ye gamers? Which system are you the most interested in?

iy's almost laughable how high of an opinion you have of yourself, when you know absolutely nothing at all about what you're posting.

the WiiU is pretty fucking legit. it's a bit odd, but that's more than fine. it has some pretty damn good games, but we're still being kept in the dark about the next wave of titles to land.

ps4 is not vaporware, and for you to use that term shows exactly how fucking retarded you are.

and the 720 (not calling it the xbox one, though i see why microsoft named it that way) isn't looking too terribly amazing. the hardware isn't really esciting, and the lack of backwards compatibility for 360 games is pretty fucking retarded on microsoft's part.


edit: also, for the record, i completed many games on the wii. off the top of my head, i finished resident evil 4, star wars force unleashed, no more heroes, metroid prime (all 3), twilight princess, and obscure: the aftermath. of those, only obscure was played co-op (really excellent game for co-op, especially with a girlfriend), and resident evil 4 (where other person watched me play the thing). the system was great.

[Chikun]

the lack of backwards compatibility for 360 games is pretty fucking retarded on microsoft's part.

That isn't pretty fucking retarded it's full blown retardation. There's no way they will release the new console like that.

Not that I give a shit personally, for me I'm more interested in how they will work as media servers and how they handle file formats because that's going to be a big thing with me.

[Tickle Me Emo]

Completely underwhelmed by everything I've seen so far. As it stands, there hasn't been a single compelling reason for me to give a flying fuck about any of the next-gen consoles. Iterative improvements that barely even qualify as improvements, and it's been how many years since a console generation? Not interested.

I like that they show off the new Call of Duty for the Xbox... wow! It looks like Battlefield 3 did almost two years ago! It's trying hard to have a srs bsns story, but since it's from Infinity Ward, I have serious doubts that I'll care.

As far as media server capability... the current gen is working fine for what I need, my PC can handle anything else I could possibly need, soooooo yeah don't care. Side note: my PC components are 2-3 years old.

The WiiU was poorly marketed. When I heard about it, I thought it was some kind of fancy controller addition to the Wii, like the game pad for old Nintendo systems. I found the idea of it rather silly. It took a while for me to figure out they had even launched a new console. That is bad. That is very, very bad. I don't keep up with the latest and greatest in console development on a daily basis, but I am better informed than the average consumer. Even the name is a poor choice, in my opinion. It doesn't sell the console at all, and actually encourages the idea of it just being Wii 1.5. I would attribute the relatively low sales numbers on the WiiU to the marketing, in part at least. The WiiU is an iterative improvement, just like everything I've seen from the other consoles, yet everyone is hyped up about those. Consumers are stupid. Throw marketing at them and they will buy your stuff even if it's not compelling.

[jwtemp]

iy's almost laughable how high of an opinion you have of yourself, when you know absolutely nothing at all about what you're posting.

the WiiU is pretty fucking legit. it's a bit odd, but that's more than fine. it has some pretty damn good games, but we're still being kept in the dark about the next wave of titles to land.

ps4 is not vaporware, and for you to use that term shows exactly how fucking retarded you are.

and the 720 (not calling it the xbox one, though i see why microsoft named it that way) isn't looking too terribly amazing. the hardware isn't really esciting, and the lack of backwards compatibility for 360 games is pretty fucking retarded on microsoft's part.


edit: also, for the record, i completed many games on the wii. off the top of my head, i finished resident evil 4, star wars force unleashed, no more heroes, metroid prime (all 3), twilight princess, and obscure: the aftermath. of those, only obscure was played co-op (really excellent game for co-op, especially with a girlfriend), and resident evil 4 (where other person watched me play the thing). the system was great.

Wow Aco, hit a nerve did I?

For starters, I don't see how my post indicates I 'have a high opinion of myself.' Obviously, the fanboy in you was offended with what I had to say about the Wii U. As for me 'having no idea what I'm posting about,' I own every game system available, including handhelds. I have a pretty good fucking frame of reference, asshole. I own ~50 games for 360, ~40 games for PS3, ~15 games for Wii and a handful of handheld titles. This doesn't even begin to encompass the number of games I've owned at some point and played, rented or borrowed to play them to completion. I was playing console games and saving up for my next big purchase probably before you had your first job. So please, go back to where you came from, which I can only assume is Nintendo Fanboyland - you obviously have no fucking idea what you're talking about here.

The Wii U is shit. The sales figures show it to be shit. The games are shit or were out ages before the Wii U was a twinkle in Miyamoto's eye. The features are, basically, shit. Woo! A twenty dollar piece of shit gamepad gimmick controller! Shit. When I see anything coming out on the Wii U that isn't a game I already played a year ago or that actually looks compelling - which doesn't include the nineteenth iteration of Mario Kart, why people continue to drop money on the same fucking rehashed game over and over, I'll never understand, then again they buy Call of Duty like it's going out of style, so I shouldn't be surprised -I'll change my opinion. Until then, the Wii U can continue to be the failure that it is while the vast majority of gamers completely ignore it (the sales figures state this, not me, so please, get your bias the fuck out of this discussion).

I'm glad you completed 'many games on the Wii,' the majority of which were released on Gamecube before the Wii even came out, which was the system I played RE4, Metroid Prime 1 and 2 and LoZ: TP. As for NMH, that shit came out on PS2 - a system released about six years before the Wii. LOL Good for you man. You're one of ten people who got some actual use out of the one-trick-pony system. I'm glad you enjoyed it - that doesn't make the innate problems, nor my opinion about the system I fucking own, any less valid.

Edit: As for your insults regarding the usage of the term 'vaporware,' it was more of an insult at Sony than a literal use of the word. I haven't seen shit from Sony about the PS4 other than some trailers and a Goddamn controller. Using the word 'vaporware' to describe that isn't a stretch. Fucking literal police up in this bitch.

[What]

Dreamcast