Console Wars
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Today's best-looking mech video: Armored Core comparison
It's an old-fashioned PS3 versus 360 graphics showdown in today's video pick, with GameTrailers running a side-by-side comparison of Armored Core 4. Which version of this mech title looks best? Judge for yourself after the break, or visit the HD version -- it doesn't embed like the SD file -- on the GameTrailers site. Let the scrutiny begin!Image from CSG_Starfury's account of life-sized BattleMech project.
Finally, someone predicts a Wii win
It looks like the analysts are coming down on our side at last. IDC, a research firm based out of Massachusetts, has come out in favor of a Wii lead over the next two years. This talk of Sony and Microsoft fighting it out over the core market while Nintendo works (successfully) to expand that market sounds like a lot of those reports we heard last year -- the reports that were predicting another third place finish from Nintendo. The wild card? No one knew exactly how successful the Wii would be at breaking into new markets, and when it comes to the analysts, it looks like that success is turning the tide back in favor of Nintendo.
It's a gaming sing along! How to Kill a Brand [update 1]
We try and bring you interesting Xbox 360 related news without all that fanboy hatred. You know, we're the popular kids on the playground without being nasty and making fun of our peers. But when we stumble across a YouTube video that blends console humor, interesting lyrics, and a guy singing in tune ... we just have to let you know about it. Think of it as a tribute to all next generation gaming systems from all walks of life and a chance to celebrate your fanboy'ism. So, without further ado, we present to you the above music video "How to Kill a Brand" by Doc Adams.Update 1: Fixed our adieu so it was more like ado.[Via Joystiq, Thanks, Free420]
360 eats electricity. A lot of it
The crew at HCW decided to compare the power consumption of all three major consoles. Just for good measure, they threw in a mid-range PC as well. The overall conclusion, both the Xbox 360 and PS3 suck up almost as much juice as a PC. The Wii, on the other hand, sips lightly on its electricity like a vacationing retiree drinking a mai tai. It's worth noting that the PS3 does consume more power than the 360. During DVD playback, the Xbox 360 uses somewhat less than the PC or the PS3, though HCW notes that 360 playback quality is low and the machine itself is noisy.Does any of this really matter? Nope, but it's interesting nonetheless, and it's sure to give fanboys some fuel for the forums. HCW will be comparing other aspects of the consoles in the coming weeks. We'll keep you posted.[Via Joystiq]
The state of the Xbox 360 in India
Last month, it was reported that the Xbox 360 was doing very well in India, despite the fact that an Xbox 360 costs more than many Indians make in a month. GameGuru.in, an Indian gaming site, decided to dig a little deeper. Game Guru surveyed a total of 123 Xbox 360 dealers in India to uncover as much information as they could. Having contacted Microsoft, Game Guru was told only that Microsoft does not reveal regional sales numbers; they like to keep their numbers global. From their sample, a total of 839 Xbox 360s had been sold, with the majority of those systems being the Premium version (keep in mind, this was a limited survey and not all dealers were willing to reveal their sales numbers). Unsurprisingly, the console sold better in more affluent regions of India.Overall, anecdotal evidence suggests that Indians prefer the PS2. Not exactly shocking, considering the PS2 is substantially cheaper. Also worth noting, pirated PS2 games are readily available in India, whereas pirated 360 titles are not. While it seems that Indians are generally impressed with the 360 when they see it displayed, it seems that the machine is just too expensive for the average Indian.Do we have any Indian readers that would care to comment?
PS3 kiosk, can you spot the 360?
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/PS3_kiosk_turns_out_to_be_Xbox_360_hidden_in_disguise'; The image above was snapped by Flickr user, hiredgoon. The photo was taken in a Harvey Norman store, an electronics chain based in Australia. It seems innocuous enough. Just an ordinary PS3 display to promote the machine for pre-order. Nothing special, right? That's what we thought, too. Let's take a closer look, shall we?
Activision: 360, PS3, and Wii tie in 2007
During Activision's recent financial results conference call, CEO Robert Kotick announced Activision's projections for 2007 console sales for North America. Griffith noted that the company expects the PS3, Wii, and our beloved 360 will all sell 4 million units. Effectively, this means the Xbox 360 will maintain it's lead over its new gen competition, at least according to Activision. Key titles for Activision's profitable 2006 include popular 360 titles like Call of Duty 3, Tony Hawk's Project 8, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Call of Duty 3, as our readers will know, has been a mainstay on Xbox Live for quite some time.It's clear that Activision sees a bright future for the 360. We have to wonder if they were looking at the pre-order numbers for Guitar Hero II when they made this prediction.[Via Xbox-Scene]
IGN: PS3 Oblivion loads quicker, looks nicer than 360
IGN got some hands-on time with the long-awaited PS3 port of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and came away with some quite favorable comparisons to the Xbox 360 version. Load times that were seven to ten seconds on the 360 have been reduced to three to five seconds on the PS3, according to IGN. What's more, the frame rate drops that accompanied entrances to detailed areas have been eliminated, and the graphics have been improved with higher resolution textures, improved shading and an increased draw distance (to minimize far off object popping up suddenly). Amazing what newer hardware and an extra year of development time will do, isn't it? Still, it's not all wine and roses for PS3 owners. While the "Knights of the Nine" side-quest will be preloaded on the PS3 disc, the rest of the downloadable content available to Xbox 360 and PC players will not be available, though the content packs "may find their way to the PlayStation Store at some point in time in the future." Hopefully PS3 adventurers will be too busy playing the massive main quest to notice the omission when the game comes out in March. [Thanks, Phranctoast]
PSP hardware shipments plummet, software up slightly
When Sony released their fiscal Q3 (Oct. - Dec. '06) financial results recently, most of the focus was on the PS3 and how the costs of its launch contributed to a massive loss for Sony's games unit. But, as the UK's Pocket Gamer points out, a massive slowdown in PSP shipments worldwide is probably just as worrying for the company. In the three month holiday period, Sony shipped just 1.46 million PSP units worldwide, a nearly 72 percent decrease from the 6.22 million units shipped during the same period a year ago. Broken down territorially, Europe and Japan each got roughly 900,000 systems while North America saw only an anemic 10,000 PSP units shipped in the three month period (no, that isn't a typo). For comparison, Reuters reported in November that Nintendo planned to ship 1.5 million DS units to Japan in December alone. But not all is doom and gloom in the Sony numbers. NPD data from December showed relatively healthy sales of nearly a million PSPs in North America, suggesting that Sony slowed North American shipments to let retailers sell off some of the 2 million systems shipped during the summer months. And despite the slowing hardware shipments, PSP software shipments actually rose 20 percent to 21.2 million units worldwide for the holiday season. Still, it's easy to look at this massive shipment slowdown and see the tide decisively turning towards Nintendo in the portable market share battle.
Japan: What can Microsoft Do? do? do?
While those in the west see the Xbox 360 a definite success (so far), Japan is a completely different story. Having only sold 300,000 units throughout the first year in its lifespan, the 360 has a long way to go in the land of the rising sun. Gamasutra sits down with a localization specialist and Kotaku's Japanese correspondent to discuss Microsoft's prospects in Japan. The prognosis: it needs work. While the two disagree on a few points (the localization director sees the glass half-empty, whereas the other sees it half-full) the overall picture is somewhat grim. The Xbox 360 has been gaining some ground in the past few months. Titles like Blue Dragon (and to a lesser extent Gears of War) have helped generate 360 sales, but it's not nearly enough to gain a decent market share. Microsoft's biggest hurdle will be penetrating the culture barrier and understanding Japanese consumers (and apparently Do! do! do! isn't cutting it).With more Japanese titles on the way (namely Lost Odyssey), Microsoft better get its marketing crew in gear if they want to stand a chance in Japan. If MS can get a foothold in Japan, it means more variety for everyone, and that's always a good thing.[Via Xbox-Scene]
Gray Lady confirms Wii's early success
You can always count on the New York Times to confirm what most people have acknowledged as conventional wisdom weeks ago. To that end, the Gray Lady today has an article looking at the relatively warm welcome the Wii has received when compared to the PS3. The Times recounts more now-tired tales of hard-to-find Wiis, PS3s piled in shops, and the Wii's potential appeal to new gamers ("My husband broke a sweat playing golf on there," one mother declares). The biggest fireworks come from Sony spokesman Dave Karakker, who derisively calls the Wii an "impulse buy" and Nintendo marketing head Perrin Kaplan, who angrily argues that Sony's reports of slow Wii shipments are "absolutely inaccurate." Save it for the ring, fellas. Possibly the most notable thing about the article, though, is the absence of any practical discussion of the Xbox 360 and its effect on the next gen race. Sure, the 360 might seem like old news compared with the more recently released systems, but it does have a multi-million unit head start and just this past holiday saw a multi-platinum ultra-seller. Surely its impact warrants more than a passing mention in the eighth paragraph. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]
Wii auctions outpacing PS3 on eBay
Cruising around eBay the other day for a deal on every single NES game, we stumbled across eBay Pop, a great little feature that lets you easily monitor the popularity and average selling price of various game consoles (and other products) on the world's most popular internet auction marketplace. Looking at the results for the past two weeks (above) we can see the Wii is the undisputed auction leader, selling over twice as many units as the PS3. That doesn't mean the Wii's dominance will last, though -- the number of PS3 auctions has shot up nearly 50 percent over the past two weeks, outpacing the Wii's increase by a good 20 percent. The Wii is also in the lead for price inflation, with auctions finishing at an average of 151 percent of the retail price. PS3 auctions average around 127 percent of retail (though this might be slightly higher when accounting for lower priced 20GB units) and, surprisingly, Xbox 360 premium auctions are selling at an average slightly less than the system's $399 retail price. Also surprisingly, more people seem to want the original NES than the 360 core system. Guess people really want that hard drive. While these stats aren't indicative of the entirety of internet auctions, or even directly relatable to actual in-store sales of the systems, the regularly updated numbers provide some good data for those of us who thrive on the horse race aspects of the console transition.
Reduced 360 target causes VG stock dip
Resulting from Microsoft's lowered shipment target for the Xbox 360, several video game makers saw their stocks fall today. THQ, Take-Two, Electronic Arts, and Activision have all dropped, with THQ falling the farthest (4.7%). The stock drop comes after Microsoft announced that it had reduced its Xbox 360 shipment targets from 13-15 million units to 12 million units. Analyst PJ McNealy notes, "There is investor concern about a re-set of expectations around both the Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3." We find the all around stock decrease interesting, as another analyst, Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets, expects that Microsoft's shipment reduction will have a negligible effect on software sales (though it does make the possibility of a 360 price cut unlikely).It will be interesting to see how the market reacts when Sony makes its financial report on Tuesday.[Via Joystiq]
Early 2007 price cut for 360 "unlikely"
According to an analyst for Lazard Capital Markets, a price cut for the Xbox 360 in early 2007 is "unlikely." One of the primary motivating factors for this is Microsoft's recently revised shipment forecast. After announcing that revenues were up, Microsoft altered its Xbox 360 shipment forecast from 13 to 15 million units to 12 million units by the end of fiscal 2007 -- this works out to approximately 1.5 million consoles by June 30th. With the shipment estimate reduced, it doesn't make sense for Microsoft to cut the 360 price and damage its prospects for profitability. While a price cut is not imminent, the analyst did not rule out the possibility of promotional bundles, though this depends partly on the performance of Sony and Nintendo's new consoles.So there you have it, don't expect a price cut any time soon.
MS: Less than 50% of 360 owners had Xbox 1
In a recent interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Microsoft's general manager of game development, Chris Satchell, speaks at length about the future of the Xbox 360 and its competition. He takes time to leverage the "set top box" ideal (as in, the 360 can do everything but make julienne fries), talks about Games for Windows and the ease of publishing titles for Windows and 360 simultaneously, and of course takes time to sully the competition. Perhaps the most surprising remark in the interview, is that less than half of Xbox 360 owners have an original Xbox. In other words, most 360 owners weren't Xbox fanboys to begin with, which means they're fresh from their PS2s, Gamecubes, and PCs. From a business standpoint, this is obviously a good thing, because it means the 360 is making a broad impact. Finally, Satchell takes a moment to sling a little mud Sony's way. Regarding Sony's online service, Satchell advises Sony to "copy Xbox Live a little more closely," adding, "My honest opinion is that it's pretty much a disaster. They keep saying that they have a free service. Well, if they don't have anything, of course it's free." Yowza. Hit the "read" link for the full interview.[Via Eurogamer. Thanks, Boff]
Gates: PS3 will never have graphics advantage
digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/gaming_news/Gates_PS3_will_never_have_graphics_advantage'; Speaking with journalist and Xbox guru, Dean Takahashi, Bill Gates offered several jabs to both Sony and Nintendo in the wake of CES. Speaking on Nintendo, Gates expressed concern that the novelty of Wii could wear off without good graphics to go with it, and that he still considered Sony to be MS' biggest competitor (O RLY?). Regarding the PS3, Gates notes that the 360 has the advantage in every area. According to Gates, the 360 has good games, is easier to program, and is cheaper to produce. Because of the 360's head start, it also has the advantage of undergoing cost reduction at a much faster rate than the PS3 with its more costly components. Gates also stated that the PS3 has no advantage in terms of graphics and that it never will. In his words, Sony "burned a year" trying to get graphics out of the Cell processor, only to have Nvidia provide a chip at the last minute. Add to this the fact that the PS3 has no unified memory and that programmers have had longer to learn the intricacies of the 360 hardware, and the PS3 is caught in a cyclical game of catch-up.Finally, Gates managed to squeeze in one more denial of a larger 360 hard drive on the horizon. When asked about the need for more space -- especially with IPTV and DVR functions on the way -- Gates responded that much IPTV data is stored on servers and storage is unnecessary. To wit: "We don't have to change the Xbox 360 at all." Uh huh, and 640 kilobytes is all we'll ever need, right?[Via 1UP]
NY Times: Strong holiday for new consoles
The New York Times' Matt Richtel today takes a look at how the big three console makers did over the holiday season. Besides mentioning the now-familiar CES sales announcements from Sony and Microsoft, the story has some interesting quotes from analysts and retailers. Most surprising among those quotes might be confirmation from Gamestop COO Daniel A. DeMatteo that Playstation 3's are available at "hundreds" of the company's stores, while Wii consoles "virtually disappeared" when they came in. It's hard to evaluate this statement without knowing how many of each system Gamestop received -- indeed, analyst Paul-Jon McNealy notes earlier in the article how Sony "seems like they're really ramping up production." Still, the widespread reports of PS3s sitting on shelves does put a damper on Sony Senior VP Peter Dille's claim that "you can declare us a winner right now." We have to agree with Microsoft's David Hufford: "That sounds like spin." We'll see just how much spin when NPD releases its December sales numbers on Thursday. [Thanks Falafelkid]
Scaling, head start keys to 360 strategy [update 1]
Recently Microsoft has been wrangling journalists into testing both a 360 and a PS3 side by side, hoping to convince them that the PS3 isn't everything Sony cracked it up to be. Their most recent victim was Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera. Invited to a room with both systems hooked up to a 1080p TV (a Sony Bravia no less), Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg and Scott Henson welcomed his questions. Naturally, they deflected many of them -- those concerning bigger hard drives and microtransaction issues -- but that's what they are trained to do. They're like PR Jedi that way. After testing several games and a hi def movie, Ben gives the slight edge to Microsoft's box. The primary reasoning for this is Ana, the 360's internal scaler chip. Sony's console lacks a scaler, meaning that native 720p PS3 games cannot run in 1080p (it might also be why PS2 games look like crap on the PS3). This gives the 360 an advantage, particularly in multiplatform games and high definition movie playback. Kuchera notes, however, that it's unfair to compare 2nd generation games like Gears of War to PS3 launch titles like Resistance. Henson counters, saying that this is in fact part of Microsoft's strategy. In essence, the 360 will always be a software development cycle ahead of the PS3. For example, 2nd gen PS3 titles like, say, MGS4 will have to compete with 3rd gen 360 titles like Halo 3. It's an interesting argument, because from a consumer's standpoint, "fairness" never enters into the picture. The consumer can only compare what's available right now, making Resistance vs. Gears a perfectly valid test -- if you buy Henson's explanation anyway.In the end, it might not even matter if the 360 can be proven demonstrably better than the PS3. As long as it appears at least level with the PS3 in terms of performance, it may become increasingly difficult for the average consumer to justify the difference in cost. Whatever your feelings on the console war, the article makes for an interesting read. Hit the read link to check it out.[Via Xbox-Scene]Update: Corrected Ben Kuchera's name.
NPD clarifies December sales info
The NPD group has made an official statement regarding yesterday's widespread news that the Xbox 360 narrowly outsold both the Wii and PS3 over the holidays. It appears that the sources that broke the story -- taken from a video segment on CNBC -- mistakenly attributed sales numbers to NPD. NPD's David Riley clarifies that CNBC only had numbers from November's NPD report. Any December sales numbers did not come from NPD. It is currently unknown from where the sales data in question was derived. We'll have definitive numbers when NPD releases them next week.[Via Xbox-Scene]
Rumor of the day: Tekken 6 for 360 [update 1]
Coming from several different sources is yet another rumor that a major PS3 exclusive is going to jump ship. This time it's the perennial combo crunching fighter, Tekken 6. Furthermore, Namco is already working on the title, and it will be available just after the PS3 version. Though Virtua Fighter 5 is nothing to sneeze at, industry watchers will know that Tekken is Sony's big name fighting franchise. Since its inception, no Tekken game has graced a non-Sony console, with the minor exception of Tekken Advance on the GBA. The info comes from an anonymous tipster at IGN -- supposedly the same person who leaked the Virtua Fighter 5 info. Could it be true? Company loyalty tells us no, but financial logic tells us yes. Namco brought Soul Calibur II to multiple platforms, only to have Sony snag exclusivity for Soul Calibur III. We're betting that Namco made a lot more money with Soul Calibur II (we're sure Link helped with that). Honestly, if Sony can't get PS3s into people's homes, publisher have no choice but to go multiplatform. This rumor is still tenuous for now, but it wouldn't surprise us if it was true.[Via PS3 Fanboy]Update: Reader, tpudd, reminds us that there was in fact one non-Sony Tekken game, Tekken Advance for the GBA.
