The console wars - who's winning this round?

[Jason]

Every seven years or so, the console manufacters go at it again and throw hundreds of millions of dollars into the development of the next generation of consoles - each bidding for that elusive number one spot.

Last time round, the winner was probably Microsoft's Xbox - despite Sony's Playstation 2 having a larger share of the market, the Xbox managed to carve out a considerable portion of the market for themselves from a standing start, thanks mainly to the huge success of the Halo games and some not inconsiderable financial muscle.

This time round, things have been a little different. With Microsoft now having an established userbase, the Xbox 360 had to work on not only expanding their userbase, but also keeping their existing users. Nintendo have thrown a massive curveball with the Wii racking up terrifying numbers of sales in the first few months, and Sony's PS3 has now started to gather some rather ominous momentum after a painful start.

So the question is, based on what we know so far, who's winning this round of the battle?

[Landy]

Hmm, hard to say really. I think MS and Sony are pretty close now, especially since Sony dropped the prize on the PS3 quite drastically. It still feels like Xbox 360 is ahead, due to bigger titles was and is getting released to Xbox 360 exclusively. I just spent 2700$ on a new PC a couple months ago, so for me the choice is easy :p

[Jason]

You see, that's an interesting one... I'd have the Xbox dead last right now - they've had massive hardware problems since day one, their exclusives aren't really all that great compared to their rivals (Gears of War, Halo (which is starting to get found out a little against shooters like CoD) and Left 4 Dead compared with the PS3's Uncharted, Metal Gear Solid, Killzone (same as Halo there), LittleBigPlanet and Gran Turismo) - the Wii has gobbled up most of the 'casual' gamer community, and whilst Xbox Live is still the best of the online packages for consoles, the PSN is starting to catch up, and perhaps more importantly, it's free.

I guess it's entirely down to perspective and how you judge 'winning' - for me, Nintendo have made the most progress this time round, but are in real danger of stagnating unless they do something major with the Wii - it's falling behind the other two fast - the PS3 is starting to really move along quickly after an appalling start, plus it has the most potential of the current generation, whereas the Xbox hasn't really moved on at all - it's more or less in the same position it was after the last round - it's definitely part of 'the big two', but it's not in any danger of becoming the clear leader any time soon.

But hey, that's the beauty of opinions. :D

[Landy]

MS managed to 'cripple' a lot of Xbox 360's with their latest patch. My brother is currently lending my xbox and he says that he can't play regular dvd movies on the console, due to the patch. I wasn't aware that the PSN was free? Gotta get the thoughts out of my head as of getting another console.. already used way to much on my new PC :p

[Jason]

Yeah, using the Playstation for online gaming is completely free. It was one of the deciding factors in whether I went for a PS3 or whether I went for a 360 Elite.

[Landy]

Alright. Well, then i might actually re-think about getting a PS3 after all. Been lusting over GT5 for a long time.

[Impulse]

In sales, the Wii, but that's beyond obvious. Once you get past public perception and reception, Sony and Microsoft have offered way more.

Yeah, using the Playstation for online gaming is completely free. It was one of the deciding factors in whether I went for a PS3 or whether I went for a 360 Elite.
Same here.

[Jason]

Oh yeah, if it was just a hardware issue, the PS3 would have won already - it's more than that though, it's a combination of things - how many have been sold, what the console is capable of (not just technologically, but innovation-wise), and perhaps most importantly, how the console has moved on from the last generation's effort.

Perhaps the Wii appears to be better simply because the Gamecube was such a poor and insipid offering from Nintendo, but it's just such a phenomenal step up in almost every respect, it's hard to believe it's the same company.

[Rogue]

Well this is a time thing.

The Xbox 360 has been out quite a long time and had the time to create and develop many many games which is the main reason for people going for the Xbox 360. Now the PS3 hasn't been out long enough yet to get enough games set up but that is changing all the time and are quickly catching up.

I feel in time the PS3 will take over Xbox 360 with a wide margin.

I heard the other day there's going to be a PS4, anybody heard anything about that?