

Sony's $89 Cell processor
iSuppli calls the PlayStation 3 an "engineering masterpiece"







Comments     Threshold


By Spivonious on 11/17/2006 4:16:56 PM , Rating: 2
LW, you seem to have all the arguments.

First off, the Wii is not an upgraded Gamecube anymore than the PS3 is an upgraded PS2 and the XB360 is an upgraded Xbox. You can say that my computer (C2D) is an upgraded Pentium 4. You can say that a Porsche is an upgraded Volkwagen. Your argument is therefore moot and I won't pay attention to it anymore.

Second, you say the "Wii-mote" is a novelty controller and once the novelty wears off, no one will use it. Dead wrong. Using the DS (currently the best selling video game system, handheld or not) as an example, when it came out everyone said "why have two screens? Developers aren't going to use that." Look now and pretty much every single DS game very creatively uses the second screen. I see the Wii-mote and all of its motion-sensing as an incredible breakthrough in gaming. As more developers climb on board with the Wii, you will see a growing disinterest in non motion-sensing games. Even Sony threw in some motion-sensing into the SIXAXIS late in the game in an effort to compete. Bottom line, it's not a novelty and it will be used in every system in the future.

Third, everyone cares about wireless controllers, that's why every system coming out now supports them out of the box.

Fourth, addressing the Wii's online system, not enough people have broadband connections to make it worthwhile. Very few of Nintendo's target audience have ever played a game online, therefore the demand for such a feature is simply not there. Plus the entire point of the Wii is to bring in non-gamers. Have a group of friends over and have fun swinging your arms around for a while. Between everyone in my group of friends we have XB360, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, N64, SNES, Genesis, NES, Master System, and a Saturn. What system do we always end up playing the most? The Gamecube. The games for it are simply more fun than the others. Online gaming is not what Nintendo is aiming for.

Fifth, the launch titles are great. Wii Sports and Excite Truck will give hours of fun for years down the road, Zelda and Red Steel will give hours of fun singleplayer.

Sixth, the sheer number of games available (32 last I heard) for Wii by the end of the year is a testament to how easy it is to develop for. Reviews on the web must be taken with a grain of salt.

the novelty of this new (read: done many times before) interface
Where has this kind of control interface been done before?

I'm always up for a lively debate, so fire away.

By akugami on 11/17/2006 5:04:38 PM , Rating: 2
I love my DS but I have to disagree with the fact that most DS games creatively use the dual screens. Most put it to good use, but a lot merely use it as some sort of inventory screen or map screen or an info screen containing health, magic, etc. Part of this can be traced to the lower resolution and smaller DS screens and it makes sense to throw some of that extraneous data on a second screen but some of it for games like Mega Man just seems to put something on the second screen to have something there rather than a blank screen. Of course, you also have games like Metroid that makes great use of the touchscreen and dual screens. I wish the dust collector on my shelf (PSP) had as much of a workout as I've given my DS.

By Tilmitt on 11/18/2006 4:20:54 PM , Rating: 2

The Wii actually is an upgraded gamecube. The CPU is a direct extension of the PowerPC gamecube's one, and as far as I know it is able to run gamecube games without any modification. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are both completely different architectures to their previous incarnations. The PS2 had a MIPS CPU, the PS3 is architecturally PowerPC with of course it's Cells. It plays PS2 games by including the old PS2 MIPS hardware and graphics core on a chip. The Xbox 360 has a multi core general purposeish PowerPC CPU compared to a Pentium !!! with half the cache x86 CPU in the original Xbox, and plays original games entirely through emulation.

On top of all of this, the fact that the Wii is only twice as fast as the Gamecube, compared to many times faster for the PS3 and Xbox 360, serves to further underline the point that the Wii is, in console generational terms, only a small step up from the Gamecube.

Finally as my own personal point I would like to add...

Shit hardware does not equal innovative gameplay.

There will be games with brilliant gameplay and games with bad gameplay for all three of the consoles. The Wii merely insures that all its games will be cursed with bad graphics. The PS3 and Xbox 360 will have more than their fare share of rubbish gameplay, but the games that do have amazingly gameplay will have such a fusion of beauty and gameplay that every Wii owner will curse their folly in ever believing that having crap hardware was somehow an advantage.

You seem to have all opinions.



Novelty not wearing off - opinion/speculation


"launch titles are great" - opinion





Related Articles
