The real winners are those that didnât buy a new gen console and instead enjoyed the much better game libraries of previous gen systems and PC gamers.
Weâll check back next holiday season to see if either of the new systems has anything worth playing.
Who won the first battle of the new console war?
Playstation. At E3. Last year.
Sony won so much good will through pricing, less DRM, and their lack of focus on America-only streaming/TV options makes me think theyâve got the international market sewn up as well as having claimed a lot of Microsoft loyalists.
Still given these consoles are basically x86 PCs, Iâd guess emulators will be out momentarily. PC owners will win at that point.
My Xbox 360 died in the beginning of December, but I opted not to buy an Xbox One. While having a new/better Kinect sensor would be nice, I am not into the whole always-on thing. Plus I wouldnât be able to play any of my existing games, so I just bought another 360 instead.
There are no longer single âwinnersâ of the console wars. Neither Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo are in danger of putting the others out of business. Who âwonâ the last generation? The Wii sold 100 million units, while the 360 and PS3 both sold 80 million. The Wii had games that sold in the 30 million copy range. Did they âwinâ? How do we gauge it? Clearly, the hearts-and-minds of core gamers went to the PS3/360, but in terms of sales, itâs not so clear. In terms of profitability for the companies, Nintendo clearly did much better (no giant quarterly losses until well into the economic downturn, no big hardware writeoffs until the Wii U). But in terms of games that âgamersâ wanted, the Wii was a total failure. In terms of sales for third party developers, the Wii was horrible. But we are long past the days of companies going down in flames like Sega did (though I admit MS gave it the old college try this year). This is due, in no small part, to Sony and Microsoft having deep pockets, diverse interests and secondary agendas tied to those interests which drive their console plans (see DVD adoption, BluRay adoption, living room integration, OS Media connectors, etc.).
The fact is that the most successful console of the last generation wasâŚthe Nintendo DS, which sold 153 million units in 4 years less than it took the PS2 to sell the same number.
Werenât the previous generation (well, at least the 360) âbasically x86 PCsâ? I donât recall seeing a 360 emulator yet.
And I just donât see the fear about the new Kinect camera. Was there this much complaint about the old Kinect? Or the Playstation equivalent (which people appear to be buying like crazy as well)?
It was more about timing than anything else. First the verizon metadata flaff and then Snowdenâs leak which explicitly said Microsoft was working with the NSA⌠and then we have this console that requires an internet connection to work and (at time of announcement) no manual on/off button and requiring at least some level of activity from the kenetic to recognize âxbox onâ?
Then again requiring a connection when carriers have managed to limit/throttle/cap your data is stupid.
Well, itâs not like the connection is sending any significant amount of data - the required connection was more about checking in, right? So if youâre limited/throttled/capped, that doesnât really matter very much.
There will be no emulators for the foreseeable future because:
- Both systems have very non-pc like memory systems which are key to their performance.
- Console games are written to exact hardware. Wiggle room is wasted performance.
As for the previous generation, the Xbox was a PowerPC and the PS3 was the Cell processor, so both were really, really far from being described as âpc likeâ.
I donât know about the PS4 but my family had that VCR when I was a kid.
How do you know what data the game is or isnât sending?
I donât, obviously, but one presumes (for performanceâs sake) that itâs not a significant amount of data streaming in and out at all times. Downloading it once and storing it on the hard drive makes FAR more sense for performance purposes than downloading on the fly as youâre playing.
I stand corrected. I was mixing up the original XBox and the 360.
Not really Rob, the OP isnât denigrating consoles which is a hallmark of the PCletist.
I have an old console (xbox360) that has the old âbetter libraryâ you mention as well as a PC. I also have an original xbox that has a huge library of literally hundreds of ROMS that it runs on emulators. With all these systems and games at my disposal I have been playing BF4 on PS4 for a few weeks now with absolutely no desire to play Dig-Dug or Frogger. Go figure.
Why must we continue to draw a distinction between console gamer and PC gamer. The two are no longer mutually exclusive (if indeed they ever were)
Umm yeah, see my post two above yours 
I personally felt the initial intro pitch from Microsoft where they listed a large number of things I have no interest in a games console doing as basically being the reason to buy was where they lost me. It was all âAnd do you know what else? The kinect will always be on! Isnât that the most awesome?â So they played up all the bits nobody cared about while ignoring the thing we do care about. And charged more.
But, yes. Waiting on getting a PS4, and in the meantime clearing through my extensive PS3/Steam/GOG backlog. And thatâs fine!
