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Community: key to the console wars?
There is an interesting editorial up at the N-Sider which takes the position that the winner of the console war won't be the system with the best graphics, the most third party developers, or the most innovation. No, says Glen Bayer, the key to next-gen will be community. He points to the popularity of MySpace and YouTube as the basis for his position. Bayer said, "...people yearn to feel as though they're part of a community ... with services such as Xbox Live and WiiConnect24, we can finally facilitate this community. The idea is to let players share their user-created maps, user-created items, and even user-created games."If nothing else, it's a fresh take on the situation. Considering how much time we gamers tend to spend on forums and online communities, Bayer may be right. But the stalkeriffic tracking tools on Xbox Live seem less geared toward community than they are toward showing off, and the community aspects -- media sharing and more -- seem underused, which could mean Bayer is wrong. Do you think Bayer's editorial hits the nail on its proverbial head, and if so, how do you think Nintendo's WiiConnect24 will fare?
