Something
Wicked This Way Comes
With
the Xbox 360 due in November 2005 and the PlayStation
3 set to debut in Spring 2006, the fur started flying
pretty early in this latest console war. Microsoft
unveiled their successor to the Xbox on MTV this
past May and industry pundits were a little underwhelmed
at not only what was presented but how
it was presented. Simply put, the MTV unveiling
of the Xbox 360 was a tad uneven and that's being
extremely generous. There was more attention placed
on the cool factor surrounding the system and not
enough substance for the gamers who actually wanted
to see the upcoming games rather than, let's say,
"Another song by....The Killers!"
Microsoft
was cocky. Too cocky. And Sony managed to come up
from behind and say "Boo." It's no secret
that Sony's PS3 had the biggest buzz going at this
years E3. Gamers were hooting about the systems
formidable power, hollering about the beautiful
games and overall geniunely impressed that at least
in this upcoming generation, you won't find anyone
complaining about the Sony version of a game ported
to all systems.
But
we have to remember that while Sony showed up with
some incredible game footage, no one from their
camp bothered to take a moment and let us know exactly
what was actual gameplay and what was rendered.
And unfortunately, that's pretty darn important.
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"Microsoft
was cocky. Too cocky."
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Visit
any message board and you'll find everything from
coolheaded arguments to death threats in regards
to gamers love for both new systems. Fights over
what system is Numero Uno have been around as long
as videogames themselves. Why I remember in the
mid 70's, my friends and I arguing over which was
better: "Pong or Not Pong". Not Pong actually
won, which was strange since it involved not playing
Pong. Unbelievably it turned out, they were correct.
Not playing Pong was better than playing it. Go
figure.
Hotheaded
freaky gaming fanboys who wear their undying allegience
to a game system on their sleeves and who will fight
to their ultimate demise trying to convince you
that Blinky from Ms. Pac-Man could easily kill Gandondorf,
can be entertaining for awhile, but eventually you
have to look at the cold hard facts.
But
to you, Mr. Educated Gamer, just what are
the cold hard facts? Are they the intricate technical
details of what is lurking inside each of these
monster machines or are they simply, the end result?
As in, the games you will play when the systems
launch?
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"Processor
speed doesn't define a game."
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Did
it matter what chisel Michelangelo used to carve
David? Does anyone care what size brush Da Vinci
used to paint the Mona Lisa? Does anyone really
want to know if the scissors used to cut the material
for the Teletubbies costumes were right or left
handed? Of course not. And therefore all of the
technical specs of the preceding system comparison
really means nothing at all. It's all tech talk.
Processor speed doesn't define a game. But just
in case it is important, I've laid it out in black
and white (or blue and green) near the end of this
article for you to peruse at your leisure.
You
may ask yourself "Where is the Revolution?"
And you may ask yourself "Why isn't Nintendo
featured in this article?" And you may ask
yourself "Where is my beautfiul home?"
And you may ask yourself "Why does this paragraph
sound like a Talking Heads song?"
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"The
greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing
the world he didn't exist."
|
Nintendo
is keeping out of the console wars right now and
many people speculate that the Big N is already
out of the running. Don't be so sure. Nintendo has
the added benefit of seeing everything that the
competition has to offer and has the opportunity
to design the Revolution to beat them. Everything
we saw from Nintendo in regards to the new system
should be considered conceptual. They've already
went on record and said that the Revolution will
look different than the designs shown and since
they didn't really deliver any tech speak, they
could be throwing everything and the kitchen sink
in it. A kitchen sink with a GB of RAM of course.
But the question is "Will they?" Nintendo
is notorious for being behind the eight ball in
terms of hardware (N64, GameCube) and leading in
terms of software. From all accounts the Revolution
is the system they should have delivered instead
of the GameCube. All we know about the Revolution
is that we'll be able to download first party Nintendo
titles for the NES, SNES and N64 (with Nintendo
trying to convince third party developers to unlock
their old classics as well). Not exactly revolutionary
but as Kevin Spacey said in The Usual Suspects:
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was
convincing the world he didn't exist." Nintendo
might surprise us all when they unveil the Revolution
proper at the end of 2005.
Now,
back to the main event. Let's talk about the things
that really matter to you. Real gamer people stuff.
Next:
Games People Play
