It’s been debated ever since the launch of the consoles in 2005/2006, who will win the war between the three big monster pieces of tech? At first, it seemed like the Wii winning was inevitable but since then, the Xbox and PS3 have slowly started to take ground. The war between the consoles, money-wise, is all but over. The Wii averages around 300,000 consoles sold a month even now, four years after its launch. This proves we’ll see a Wii 2 (HD?), we can only hope they have an actual shot at winning the war next time around, and not just one battle.
It’s apparent from just walking around the nearest Gamestop or exploring Amazon that the games catalog for the Wii is slim to none. The top three games out there (according to Metacritic) are Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Zelda: Twilight Princess. While these three games may be fairly good, it shows Nintendo’s lack of ability to produce new, good titles. Out of the top 10 games, there’s only one game (World of Goo) that is an original property and isn’t a port from a previous release on another console..jpg)
I’m not entirely dismissive of the Wii, I understand people can do Wii games right (See Silent Hill: Shattered Memories), but it’s such a rarity, and apparently a very hard thing to do. It seems most developers these days have all but given up on making original titles as even if they are of good quality, they make no profit.
Next, the PS3. I’m quite the PS3 lover, actually. I usually go for the Xbox 360 versions of the games but I spend hours upon hours watching Blu-Rays on my PS3. The main reason the PS3 isn’t the leader of the consoles right now comes down to two things: Achievements and Xbox Live. Achievements do seem to be a very miniscule but if you think about it, they add hours upon hours to the gameplay experience, something PS3’s trophies has never managed to do. There’s a certain feeling to racking up a huge gamerscore that trumps earning levels and trophies.
I will be the first to admit, Xbox’s interface is garbage. The “NXE” (If we can still call it that) is ugly and a nuisance to navigate through. I find myself consistently doing whatever is in my power to avoid using the slides. The PS3’s XMB on the other hand, is a breeze to go through. You can find the more important stuff fairly quickly and without a problem. The XMB will have its occasional hiccups and won’t load properly, but for the most part, it does what it should without providing a huge barrage of advertisements I couldn’t care less about.
Xbox Live is where, at this point in the game, Microsoft has overtaken PS3. While their (Xbox’s) menu’s may be a burden to navigate through, they still possess high quality features such as Netflix and a great way to talk to friends; with only more stuff coming, such as Hulu and ESPN. PS3 has tried to rival this but they never get the high quality stuff first. Sure, they have Netflix. But its menu’s are even worse than the ones on Xbox and why would I keep up with a disk when I can launch it straight from the dashboard on Xbox? You can argue that the PS3 does have Hulu now, and that’s a fair argument. But that’s the only service they’ve got early. And to get Hulu on PS3, you’d still have to buy PS Plus, a service that no one really wants in the first place.
Going into this article, I planned on closing it out by saying “The Xbox 360 has won, not just winning, has won the console wars.” But after evaluating everything, the PS3 still has a chance. It may not be a large chance, but it has a chance. Despite who’s actually winning, it doesn’t matter if you’re an Xbox guy or a Wii guy, all video gamers should be pretty happy to be gaming right now.
