Next Gen Consoles

All of the major console players are showing their next generation product for the first time at E3 this year. Microsoft has XBox 360, Sony has PS3, and Nintendo is releasing their Revolution.

The big question is who will come out ahead? For the record I'm putting my money on Sony.

Unlike many entertainment markets, the console gaming industry is not driven by the American consumer market. It is driven by the Japanese market which is where more of the profits are made. While Xbox is doing fairly well in the US, it isn't in Japan. It is too large among other things. This is a big part of why, despite the hype, Xbox is actually fighting with Gamecube for second place in the console market with Sony far ahead. Nothing about the new Xbox tells me that they have learned their lesson.

Many people don't realize that the original Xbox hardware was a major miss-step. It is fast and the PC hardware made it attractive to game designers, that is true. However it never became possible to produce it profitably, so Microsoft was taking a loss on every system. The chief cause of this is the hard drive. The original idea was for Xbox 360 to drop the hard drive and go with a more console based architecture. However without the hard drive they also have to drop backwards compatibility with their existing XBox game library. Either way they lose. PS3 doesn't have any of these problems and it is backwards compatible all the way to PS1.

Lastly, take a look at a technical comparison of PS3 vs 360. The Xbox had undeniably superior graphics compared to the PS2. This is one of its biggest claims to fame. The XBox 360 does not outperform the PS3, in fact the PS3 may be superior.

Has Sony made mistakes? Sure. They have the perfect controller which everyone likes, but they replaced it with the boomerang. Granted the boomerang is wireless, but if I was Madcatz I'd be bringing out a bluetooth PS1/2 style controller for PS3. It would sell like hotcakes.