The Big Three's consoles: size matters

Just thought you'd like to know. And yeah, even thought it's not the stylingest, we think aesthetically (if not the Wii then) the PStwo is probably our fav. But that's just us.

P.S. -We understand the Wii's not 100% accurately represented here. Looks pretty close though.

[Via Joystiq]

[Tricky @ Jun 25th 2006 6:04AM]

Neato! Very interesting.

[Lionel Seidman @ Jun 27th 2006 10:08AM]

Who cares about console size? Shouldn't this race be about the consoles capabilities, and their gameplay. Having a smaller console (in the case of Wii) only compromises power and graphical capabilities. I don't understand how they get by calling the Wii a next gen console, without even having HD, isn't that the whole point of next gen consoles.

[DGMJr. @ Jun 28th 2006 11:45AM]

Lionel, I actually don't see how your argument holds up. First, while Nintendo has stated that the Wii isn't going to have HD output. To be honest, they didn't have a choice, they are a video game company, not a movie making or OS seller that sells video games on the side, to say they should have HD just means they go out of business. Not to mention that this
is most likely a case of putting the cart before the horse, to even provide HDTV output and resolutions at all.

Only about 20-30% of households right now have HD TVs at all, most have SDTVs at best, even big screen. Even with its lesser specs the differences between the Wii and other consoles on those televisions will most likely not be noticable. HDTVs are not financially feasable to own for most people in America right now, that's simply a fact, and it will hold true for quite a few years at best.

Nintendo cannot be a loss leader here, if they tried, well, Microsoft and Sony have MUCH deeper pockets. In another five years, it would make sense to add HD output on their consoles, but not yet. Its projected to cost Microsoft almost 600 dollars to manufacture each 360, and it is probably the bare minimum required to have decent graphics on HDTV. If Nintendo were to try to match that, they couldn't compete on price at all, but rather try to sell the console at a small loss at the minimum, somewhere around 550 dollars, and even that may put them in the red, something they can't afford to do, it would probably have been about 600 dollars. Hell, Sony is probably making an even bigger mistake, it is projected that it will cost them almost 1000 dollars to manufacture the PS3, with Blu-Ray and HD Output available. and they are selling the console at 600 dollars.

Most people will not pay that much for a console, not from Nintendo, not from Sony, even Microsoft's higher end console is borderline unavailable for most people. Nintendo, unlike its competitors, HAS to stay in the black, it really is that simple, to do that, HDTV was sacrificed. Instead they are thinking different so to speak, to take a line from Apple, and the question still remains as to whether or not any of these 3 consoles will be successful.

With their positioning, Nintendo may have a successful stragedy, as the second console. Both Microsoft and Sony have stated that their customers should get a Wii as a second console. This is a big endorsement, from competitors no less, while taking swipes at each other. With a target price of less than 250 dollars, most likely 200 dollars, the Wii will be a third of the price of a PS3, and about half the price of the 360.

To give another example of this, expandability, as far as I know, no one has even touched upon this, but let's compare storage capacities of each system. The XBOX has, on the higher end, a 20 GB hard drive, the Wii has 512 MB of flash memory, a paltry number. However, the Wii is compatible with one of the most popular flash memory cards manufactured, SD cards, which are getting cheaper by the day, in addition to this, the Wii also has two USB ports, and Nintendo has stated that it is compatible with ALL mass storage devices. This means you can even plug in an Ipod and put game saves or other data from the Wii on it. Not to mention USB hard drives, which you can get one that is much larger than 20 GB for a lot less than 1 hundred dollars.

The question isn't one of who has the most GHz in speed on their system, or how many GFLOPs they can process, the question is one of value and budget. Most people do NOT have that much money to burn, and buying a Wii, for 200 bucks, where you can use the same memory card that's in you digital camera for transferring game saves and games from the Virtual console, in addition to possibly other media, would be a big selling point.

Ever since E3, people have been impressed with the comparatively paltry Wii because of not only the innovative controller(s), and Virtual Console, etc. But also because of price. Would it be nice to have the biggest, meanest, system on the city block, yeah, but if it costs a month's salary to do it, is it really worth it?

To many people, the majority, the answer is no, and besides that, from a business perspective, both the 360 and the PS3 are going for a niche market, at least initially, the "hardcore" gamer, who doesn't mind spending most of a paycheck to get the "latest and greatest". To be honest, 360 sales have been a little less than stellar, due mostly to lack of quality games, Oblivion notwithstanding, however also due to price, nobody wants a crippled system for 300 dollars, segmenting the market in this way is rather stupid. Developers have to actually design games without putting the hard drive in as a factor, this can hamper innovative developments, etc.

This is actually worst for Sony, who knows how bad the "lower end" console will be, it will lack MANY features of the more expensive one, just to be affordable. This is also a mistake in my view. At least Microsoft made it possible for you to upgrade the 360 to the fully featured model, though I don't know if Sony will do the same.

Whether the Wii is a "next gen" console is actually completely beside the point. Unlike all other transitions in the past, this is one of minute differences. Whereas the difference between a Playstation 1 and 2 was rather dramatic, the differences today are ones of resolution, which is all HDTV provides, and details. Besides, the Wii also has another thing going for it, it may actually bring in those "hardcore" PC gamers that have so far eluded most console makers. No offense to anyone here, but having played Quake, Unreal, and other FPS on PCs, with keyboard and mouse, then transitioning to Halo on the XBOX was simply painful from a control standpoint.

Finally we may actually be able to have quality FPSes that are not awkward to control with the Wii. This is perhaps the most innovative control system I have ever seen, unlike with PCs, or console "optional" controllers, like light guns, we may see new ways to actually play the game that is not only more immersive, but more instinctive as well.

[humblefrog @ Sep 13th 2006 6:18AM]

Neat chart. I've been using http://www.sizeasy.com to do some neat size comparisons too, its a pretty cool interactive tool.