The Current Console Generation (your thoughts)

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jamesohgoodie
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20 Aug 2008, 11:33 pm

I think a lot about the past and future of video games, and while content quality was all over the map with the last console generation, all three consoles were more or less on equal footing. In fact it wasn't uncommon at all for the same game to be released on the Gamecube, the PS2, and the XBox.

The current generation has offered some more variety but I still feel anxious about the three main consoles. The Wii has a great control scheme but it has low resolution and poor online, so developers don't seem into it. The 360 has great online but glaring technical problems. And the PS3 i can see having lasting appeal but it's too expensive and the Blu Ray format really hasn't been used to great effect.

Maybe I'm just over-thinking. Why do you think of the current console generation? What do you like or dislike about it?


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Enigmatic_Oddity
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21 Aug 2008, 1:00 am

I think it's good to see variety in the consoles, rather than 3 versions of the same thing, which has been the norm. Nintendo has always wanted to do their own thing, ever since the N64 when the market was heading towards a more young adult oriented audience. The Wii is just the logical extension of that philosophy. It's not my cup to tea though, and I'm sure there's others out there that find the control aspect of the system gimmicky and not adding anything to what makes games fun for them, just as there's others who think it's the bees knees. The system also apparently has twice the technical power of the Gamecube, but I've never seen it. The vast majority of games I have ever seen on the Wii look like they could pass off as last-generation.

The PS3 and XBOX 360 strike me as being part of the traditional console race, where both competitors try to stay neck-and-neck with each other. The fact that games made for XBOX 360 are easily ported to PC and vice versa doesn't appeal to me, but I can see how it would appeal to people wanting to play games traditionally on PC. Sometimes it results in terrible ports such as Supreme Commander, and other times it means that when games go cross-platform the XBOX 360 version gets less technical problems than its PS3 cousin and runs slightly better, or in cases like the Orange Box, a lot better.

The PS3 for me is the one I 'chose' and by that I mean it only was ever a choice for me between XBOX 360 and PS3, and both are so expensive that I only really wanted one. The number one reason for me choosing PS3 over the XBOX 360 is that almost every AAA release on the XBOX 360 also gets released on the PC, often in a superior form. Off the top of my head, I can't even name one XBOX 360 game that isn't on the PC or will be in the near future.

PS3's AAA releases more often don't see release on PC. That's a huge plus for me, as any game that sees simultaneous release on console and PC I will almost inevitably get for the PC, unless it turns out inferior. The Blu-ray thing doesn't matter to me at all, I don't find Blu-ray a selling point of the PS3 despite having a capable HDTV. I've never used the PS3 for anything but playing games and the occasional upscaled DVD.

If there's one thing I don't like about the current consoles, it's how expensive consoles have become. People bang on about the Wii being the cheap option though I find it by far the most overpriced system, and the PS3 and XBOX 360 just a tad overpriced for what's under the hood. My favourite new development in consoles this generation is downloadable content, and I don't just mean things like Oblivion horse armor but whole games via WiiWare, PSN, and XBLA. A lot of these smaller low-budget types of games are more experimental that anything you can buy from the store at full-price, and I think because of these options for developers we'll be seeing a lot more innovation in games, as opposed to the last generation where if you wanted to play one of these types of games, you often had to buy them quickly or scour ebay to find a copy at inflated prices due to much more limited production and distribution.



Rainbow-Squirrel
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22 Aug 2008, 3:49 pm

I'll be very short:

I own them all (360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP), I like them all ! :wink:

Each one has a different style, each one has A LOT of fun to give.



Moose1132
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22 Aug 2008, 9:36 pm

I own a 360 and a PS3 right now, but I did have a Wii for about a year. Basically, the 360 is by far my favorite for gaming. There's a huge variety of great games for it and a lot are exclusive. I still like the PS3 simply because it has blu-ray. I don't think it has nearly as many big games. There still are some though; like MGS4, Resistance, and Drakes Fortune. The Wii I really tried to enjoy. I've owned all of Nintendo's major consoles since the NES and have loved them all. But the Wii just wasn't my thing. There weren't many quality games out. In fact, I only liked 3 Wii games the entire time I had the console (Mario Galaxy, Zelda, and RE4) and even those let me down a bit. I think Nintendo has taken a new direction and is aiming to please the casual gamer and young kids now. But that's where the money is obviously.



Reodor_Felgen
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23 Aug 2008, 6:30 pm

I own a PS3. I love it, but there are two things I don't like:

1. It's not backward compatible
2. It can't play homebrews


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z0rp
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23 Aug 2008, 6:41 pm

As far as I'm concerned:
PS3 - Alright console, main reason for getting one seems to be to play the new Metal Gear Solid (only good exclusive game) and avoiding the technical problems given by the 360. I've heard people get lockups and such though, and at a friend's house I did experience a lockup during Call of Duty 4. In general it's nice but Blu-ray is slow and crappy, yes it has more storage but if you're going to give us more storage in the form of an extremely slow optical disk that's not a very good idea honestly.

360 - My personal favorite, perfect online play, great games, etc. It just seems to have some issues that Microsoft needs to work out. Back in the day you would buy a console and it would work, you could put it on top of your cable box or below it in your media center shelf by your TV and it wouldn't overheat. The original Xbox didn't have this issue, microsoft should have made the Xbox 360 case a bit larger and added better cooling or at least done something to make it more efficient in this area.

Wii - I don't see this console as much of an upgrade from the Gamecube as far as graphics are concerned, though it does support widescreen now I believe when the gamecube didn't. One thing I must commend Nintendo on though, is not the remote or the other amazing capabilities with the Wii, it's the stability of the Wii. The PS3 has tons of random lockups and is slow, the Xbox has the red ring of death and other issues but the Wii? The Wii is stable! That's expected though as even before with the Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox, the Gamecube was the most durable and efficient, so Nintendo deserves to be commended.

Forgive me if I made any errors as I don't actually own any of these consoles but have used all of them at different times at friends' houses and have read quite a bit about each.



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23 Aug 2008, 9:36 pm

Ok each thing brings something else, I own a 360, a DS and I share a Wii. The DS is good as it is hand held and some of the stuff in it is quite advanced, it includes things like, touch screen, microphone, a good stand by modode and good backwards whatever the word with advanced games. It seems to going towards Nintendo fans and even a kind of lifestyle thing with such things as brain training, sight training and even a cook book, it can be good to just pick up and play as there is not usualy too big of a hassle. It has kept simular in many aspects to the beloved gameboy series. My favitout game on mine is my pokemon pearl.

The Wii seems to have simular angle to the DS, they have a bunch of the favirout nintendo things which remakes of things are not an issue. It also has Wii fit, a thing called a Mii where you creat a mini you which apears when you play some games or even might appear when someone is playing some team game. I mostly play it for Smash bros and I thought that it is very fun, and some things like motion sensing is always an interesting aspect and could be the future, but I like to just sit and play a game.

Now the 360 is my favirout, it has more mature games and some of my favirout are, Oblivion, Viva Pinata, Dead rising, Assasin creed, Halo 3, mass effect and GTA4. Though I dont do it a huge amount of the time the online is quite good, like playing Halo has opend up a comunity, where you can check your stats out on the internet. The profiles can be good where you can do a kind of MSN thing, actualy you link up your account and even do chats to friends on MSN or one of my favirouts is linking up with one of my friends online and have a conversation with hime while I play.

I dont have a PS3 largley due to the money thing and at the moment it is just either got few games, or isnt much that I cant get on 360, like I have been told that GTA4 was better on 360 as the online was better. Now the PS3 is technicaly better in many ways like motion sensors in the controler, but that has made them take out the rumble feature and only 360 has the rumble feature. It has a better graphics, but I have a non high def screen so any difference does not realy effect me. I know from my friend a few things but one problem he had was that when it froze you had to turn the power out. they also have Oblivion but by the time it was on it it was old news.


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exiled_sage
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24 Aug 2008, 2:46 am

Twilight princess was good on the wii.
Other then that I've only played Okami on it (For any length of time)
The bulk of the other games I've tried on it had poorly thought out controls/game-play.
It has a lot going for it innovation-wise, that has yet to be used on a wider scale.
But The 360 seems to have more games i'd play the whole way through.
Ps3 hasn't had any "must have" games for me yet.



Tensho
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24 Aug 2008, 4:36 am

I dont own a current generation console. They all seem to be a little disappointing and I think this generation has failed. I wouldnt be surprised to see the next generation appear sooner than expected. I give this generation 2-3 years before its replaced.



Bradleigh
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24 Aug 2008, 7:14 am

An interesting point is that PS2 is still going strong, but it looks like they are fading out the GBA, one of the big things is that the pokemon rescue team earlier on realesed a GBA and a DS game but this time only DS. It looks like all the generations have experimented. Oh here is a good song.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfmBzllkbUM[/youtube]


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philosopherBoi
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24 Aug 2008, 8:49 am

Its pretty sad.

The PS3 is more of a DvD player than a gaming console plus the huge price tag (original price tag was worse), failed attempt at motion control, no rumble (old issue).
The Xbox 360 is nice lots of good games but has the red ring of death, high price tag, and lack of Japanese support.
The Wii lack of third party support despite popularity, memory issues, lack of innovation using motion control.


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Reodor_Felgen
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24 Aug 2008, 9:08 am

philosopherBoi wrote:
Its pretty sad.

The PS3 is more of a DvD player than a gaming console plus the huge price tag (original price tag was worse), failed attempt at motion control, no rumble (old issue).
The Xbox 360 is nice lots of good games but has the red ring of death, high price tag, and lack of Japanese support.
The Wii lack of third party support despite popularity, memory issues, lack of innovation using motion control.


I don't know anything about the american price tags, but in Norway the Xbox 360 Premium is only 40$ more than the Wii (keep in mind that everything is twice as expensive in Norway as in the USA).

Being given that the Wii is just a slightly more powerfull Gamecube (with motion sensors) it's damn expensive.


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KenM
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24 Aug 2008, 4:08 pm

Reodor_Felgen wrote:
I own a PS3. I love it, but there are two things I don't like:

1. It's not backward compatible
2. It can't play homebrews



Not sure how Sony markets the PS3 in Norway. But in the USA Sony puts out 2 versons of the PS3. A bare bones model with a 40 GB hard drive, only 2 USB ports and no card reader, and no backwards compatablity. They also put out a 80 GB model with 4 USB ports, card readers and backwards combatablity.

Sony is going to start putting 80 GB hard drives in the non backwards compatable models. The "full" model will have a 160 GB drive. Due out this fall.

Also, one thing the PS3 has over the Xbox 360 is that Sony does not charge extra for playing online.



KenM
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24 Aug 2008, 4:13 pm

Bradleigh wrote:
Now the PS3 is technicaly better in many ways like motion sensors in the controler, but that has made them take out the rumble feature


Sony has managed to put the rumble feature back in. The newer controllers both rumble and has motion sensor.



corroonb
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24 Aug 2008, 6:39 pm

I have a 360 and I am very happy. The online service is second to none and most of the games perform better on the 360. Xbox Live Arcade has dozens of great games like Geometry Wars and Braid.



Darc
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24 Aug 2008, 6:44 pm

I'm not really interested in the current consoles... Sure they all have some great games but they're not worth the money in my opinion. I'll just stick to my DS which is considerably cheaper and can be played anywhere I want.


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