The console Wars

[camrE]

It's almost 11 years, and a lot of people still haven't grasped what happened between Sony and Nintendo.

1.   Sony approaches Nintendo to make a CD-based console to combat Sega’s CD-based Saturn, that was on the horizon.

2.   Nintendo says yes and then they start developing the system, codenamed Playstation.

3.   Hiroshi Yamauchi wakes up one morning and decides “I don’t trust Sony Corp. I will not help Sony get into the console business.”

4.   Nintendo turns it’s back on Sony, because of the erratic behavior of the genius/insane president. They team up with Phillips to create their own CD-based Nintendo console. The CD-I, which goes on to be a monumental failure.

5.   Sony decides to go ahead and continue development with the ‘Playstation’ and launches in 1994 in Japan.

6.   Nintedo immediately picks up and creates the N64 themselves, both companies start developing games for their systems. This is where Nintendo began to stab themselves in the back.

7.   Sony has their CD based system, and starts approaching companies, knowing nothing about the gaming market, they gave developers certain leeway to use their imagination and create new, radical games. The developers ask what will their media (CD’s) cost, Sony sells the discs @ $0.50 to $2.00 a disc. While Nintendo is trying to sell their carts @ $10.00 to $25.00 a piece. Huge companies that came into their own on Nintendo’s systems decide, “we owe you for our success Nintendo, but we simply cannot afford to pay $10.00 per cart and buy a million carts to put the games in. We’re going with Sony, their CD’s are a lot cheaper, and they have a lot more space to put data on. Besides, it’s a lot easier to develop games without having to worry about compressing the data. It’s a lot easier.”

8.   Nintendo refuses to back their prices down, as they fear losing money, their line of thought is, “We’re Nintendo, we can always slap Mario’s face on any game and it will sell a million units easy.” This proved to not be the case.

9.   Gamers started getting a wide variety of software on the PSOne, from all the companies that pulled away from Nintendo, Squaresoft (which has now merged with Enix and is now known as Square Enix), Namco, Capcom, and a slew of other developers. Nintendo starts going down.

10.   Sony starts pumping out titles at an average of 8 games per month, their systems start going bad, and they continue to ship out faulty hardware. But the masses ignore the reports and continue to buy the system for such hits as Final Fantasy VII, Tekken, Street Fighter, and so on.

11.   Nintendo counters with their first and second party titles, Banjo Kazooie, Mario Kart and a few others, but it proves to be not enough.

The victory was given to Sony on a silver platter by Nintendo. With the use of the cart, Nintendo hurt themselves, with the cost of the carts, they hurt themselves terribly. It proved to be a fatal wound.

ROUND TWO - PS2 vs. GCN vs. XBOX

Sony drops the PS2. The system comes out in the midst of high expectations and anxiety. The first five titles, were definitely less than stellar. But the system was riding high on the success of the PSOne. People didn’t care what they played, as long as they played on the PS2. The system has a DVD player, which was fairly new technology to the masses, as the equipment to play the DVD Movies, was still expensive, this seemed to be a phenomenal premium.

Micrososft announces it would be in the race for number one console. A race that Sony was already leading as their system had been out for quite some time. Nintendo announces it would be out harder this time. Not as kiddy as before, it shows it’s Gamecube. The tiny powerhouse. The Gamecube and Xbox release within 3 days of each other. Both coming out with weak titles. Neither of which seems to catch on. Microsoft tries to push it’s system, but the Japanese market refuses to be bought by the fabulous graphics and North American games. Nintendo is rising on their new reputation of being the kiddie company, launching with Luigi’s Mansion certainly did not help.

The title was short and while entertaining, less than what the masses were looking for. The PS2 continues to sell, because of their exclusive titles. The same titles that the gaming market definitely wanted.

Microsoft pulls out it’s trump card and begins Xbox Live, it’s online multiplayer service. It rockets the Xbox above the Gamecube and holds it in a far second place for a few months. The industry begins counting Nintendo as dead. Nintendo decides to do something drastic, it needed to…desperately. Nintendo drops the price of the Gamecube to $99.00, this proves shoot them over the Xbox, and the systems begins racing off the shelves. It holds them in the distant second place now. But the company continues to release weak software.

This brings us to now. While Xbox live only gets popular time, the Xbox isn’t moving. The Gamecube had nothing to push it out there, a phenomenal software line up still isn’t enough. To little, to late. That’s the case for both of the following consoles. We wait till 2005 Q4 to see what the future holds.

There are numerous rumors of all systems. They all sound great, but no one has any idea what to expect. Microsoft is ignoring Nintendo’s existence, and Nintendo is fixed on making a splash with their ‘Revolution’. Sony is as arrogant as ever, thinking they will ride on their name forever, and ignoring both other companies. Only time can tell what will happen.


                     

[Imperial_X]

The folks at Sony are smart.  If the other companies have to go through all that insanity to get peak sales as opposed to getting good titles going, then they don't need to be concerned with them.  They're like soldiers who don't know their weaponry.                    

[ChRoNiC]

i don't care what happened between sony an nintendo
I say NINTENDO ALL THE WAY!!!                    

[JïhåÐ Wã®lØrd]

is sega genesis idmc when i start to rip up in meh street fighter 2 turbo                    

[W1nTry]

There are alot of things that are missing from the initial post... I did a case study of Sony and the Playstation about a year ago and dug up alot of info, to be honest I can't rem much now but I will do my best.... if there are errors in my post correct me.

Sony Electronics is a subsidiary of Sony Japan and was a highly sucessful subcompany in their market. Sony itself has and does have extremely sucessful ad campaigns and the technological background of the group allowed for the proper development of the relevant technologies that make up the PS1 and PS2.

All that was mentioned about the Nintendo vs. Sega vs. Sony was more or less correct. Nintendo shot itself in the foot (not to the extent that Sega did and BTW Sega should be in the first post as they dominated the market in the 80 and part of the 90's believe it or not). And subsequently died a horrible death in the console wars. Nintendo though made a bad decision on the cartridges did have good titles. However Sony's Marketing had a significant part to play in the fall of Nintendo. With new titles and better support for in game movies Sony played its marketing engine like the fine tuned machine it is and blew Nintendo away with its ads. Together with the more mature image of games they were developing. Nintendo had a huge installed fanbase inthe 80's however they grew up and unfortunately their games did not with them, so as the next best these older crowd moved to the next console. Sony did tonnes of market research and population analysis to see and basically predict the developing marketing trends and teh aging gaming crowd that already existed.

Ok that was one point I could rem... onto the PS2.

The PS2 like the N64 has hardware blunders so to speak. Firstly it was expensive to manufacture, it was LATE cause the supply could not meet the demand, they used RAMBU$ technology whilst faster was more expensive to produce and yields were lower per wafer. They sufffered bad product lines for a few months and generally was off on a bad foot. However as was said, riding teh sucess of its predecessor and the hot new titles that the new platform boasted was enough to keep the crowd wanting more regardless. The ps2 lacked online play (initially btu they were smart and allowed for the inclusion of such technology UNLIKE the GCN). With the dawn of the Xb0x the idea of a HD came into the picture... this too was facilitated. Heck u can get a LINUX development kit for the PS2 and run linux and write programs for linux on a PS2. The advantage the PS2 held over the other consoles was scalability (over the GCN) installed fan and game bases + new titles and proprietry technology that was not that simple to hack (unlike the Flexbox).

I think u are wrong to say that Sony is sitting idly by or that it thinks that it can... cause the PS3 or whatever its supposed to be called is being developed using something called a CELL processor. Its being developed jointly with Sony, IBM and some other comp I can't rem right now. In theory these processors are identical but can be assigned to any and every task in the box. They are intended to be many times more powerful than the current CPU's we have in our most advanced PC's and will (once sucessfully completed) open a whole new world to Sony and the WORLD over for its MANY applications outside of just a gaming console. I won't go into all the hype behind the Cell processor and its processing capabilities and mulitprocessing capabilities for that matter. Just know that Sony is working HARD to get them out the door. Last I heard they were supposed to begin sampling. ANd needless to say having IBM behind u says ALOT.

The wars are going to get really heated that we can be sure of... we shall see who wins the next rounds and who loses or dies altogether as the case maybe. History has a way of repeating itself. The real question is... who doesn't look at their history books.
                     

[Zard]

*additiond to camre's post*
1) it is true that sony tried to team up with Nintendo....but did you know that Microsoft tried on many occasions to buy nintendo...they were unsuccessful so they developed their own console.

2) it is true that the PS2 releases tonne's more games that Nintendo, but when the pot boils down most of these games are crap and Nintendo's offerrings of great games are not far behind it you count each individual worthwhile game.

3) Many surveys show that many Console gamers couldn't care less about online games...so it is not a big issue as many make it and i don't think that is a negative to nintendo

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RIP sega
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I am sure ya'll pick it up by now that i am behind nintendo
*reason*
Nintendo is a straight gaming company and has survived (and continue to survive) offences by Huge multifacited multi-product enterprises like SONY (technology giant) and MICROSOFT (software giant) while other companies have folded under the pressure (most memorable Sega and atari in the 90's).
I think that franchises such as Mario, Zelda, Metroid etc are 'undeadable' (lack of a better word:D)


when you look at it though the next year this time ganna be really "bloody" in the console wars...they say that there is only space for two ...i wonder who will drop out?!?


Nintendo should make a statue of liberty sized gameboy and it's variants cuz i think that lil bad boy has been their lifeline in many a sticky situation.                    

[camrE]

Scar has the idea. I don't care what any surveys may say about online play, if you own an xbox and been on Live you will know the demand for it. I am the biggest Nintendo fan, many of you know that, but I will tell it like it is.

To wintry, no one actually cares which company is behind what, IBM created the GPU that is IN the GCN, The Gekko chip, aka the Doplphin chip. It made no difference. And as for what Sony has up their sleeve, Again, no one gives a crap, especially as it is abundantly obvious where MS is coming from, the XBOX is leagues ahead of it's running-mates technologically. MS is not afraid of top notch software.

The hype should lie behind Nintendo for that matter, the spotlight is on them and they know it. They have said it, and they promise something big, heck, it's codenamed the Revolution.

About Sony being sloppy with the software, it is no news to anyone, there are about 10 versions of the PSOne, and they all suck. Anyone remember having to flip their system up-side-down, because og the faulty lense, or because of the heatinmg problem?

As for Sega, No one in the industry has any explanation for why the DC failed, Not Sony, Not Nintendo, Not MS. The system was great, excellent graphics, huge marketing campaign, and a slew of great games. When the failed to sell 50% of what they expected too, they pulled the plug on home hardware. Not a bad move after all.                    

[Imperial_X]

My ps2 plays great.                    

[ShinSagat]

Umm d problem with gamecube is that they fail to realise that peiongage move up an age group..they though a straight gamin system will still win over an multitasker which is madness. I still believe that they are the best at what they do; this is because microsoft nor sony makes games. With titles like smash bros melee (which sold alot of cubes) to mario sunshine they still have plenty fight left..they just started on a horrible foot                    

[poeticfighter]

the ps2 is the best Selling console
as far as i see it nintendo hasn't changed their outlook on gaming
"he with the best games wins" - i think that was what the one of nintendos big boys said.
    i never really considered microsoft as a big boy in this console war mainly because they never really made that big a mark on the trinidadian gaming community (mainly because the x-box carries alot of pc games and we *cough**cough* pirate*cough*  pc games so why buy an console to play fps(which by the way aside from the many sports games are the top sellers on the console)  )
 
me i am a nintendo man cause like their style of games                        but i can't help looking to see if they will eventually do a sega on u. I am sorry but seeing mario on a ps2 *blech*.                    

[LiQuiDSNaKe]

If they fail with the revoloution.....expect to see mario spinning on your PC or maybe X-BOX, they definitely not gonna give it to Sony.
One of the reasons the GC doesn't sell so much beacuse it isn't hard core ..(hardcore meaning ugly)like the X-BOX its pretty and the games are usually multiplayer based for fun, alot of the multiplayer games on X-Box once somebody haas more skill than u it's kinda hard to catch them back.There isn't much co-op games on the X-Box or PS2 but there are tons on the GC and that's what i prefer, it makes single player games more fun and add loads to replay value.                    

[camrE]

As stupid as this sounds, the GCN seems to have been cursed. And the curse is being perpetuated by the industry. Well another way to look at the curse "theory" is by way of the DC. The industry is baffled by the failure of the DC. It was an outstanding system during its time, yet still, it failed. Almost seems like the case with the GCN and the rate at which third-party games sell for the system. This excludes Soul Calibur obviously. Third party games, do not sell well on the system, hence many of the popular companies withdrew their support, and hence the system is less popular. The GCN is an extremely able machine; go look at the spec comparison as compared to the PS2. And then, theres another reason why the cube is less popular, NO ONLINE CAPABILITY. Hmmm... The list of reasons seems to be getting bigger. lemme see here.

1.   no online play

2.   Weak third party support

3.   no dvd capability

OK, I can only think of three legitimate reasons why the GCN is weak in sales. And only one of those three reasons is major, Weak third party sales is it. Blah, Blah, Blah. People got scared after what they got with the N64. And they just refused to by the GCN. The physical look and launch library did nothing to help the already-growing speculation that it was going to be another Kiddie-box. It looked like a kiddie box, everyone says it’s a kiddie box, so most likely it is a kiddie box. Hence, weak sales. The console wars was never about graphical power, cause in both rounds, Nintendo is far beyond Sony (the tech geniuses) and the Xbox is far superior to these two combined yet it didn’t sell before Live was started. So what is the war really about? Software, the content, not even about what the systems can do. You all probably know my moto by now. You want to be the real winner, go cop all the consoles. It’s the only way to satisfy yourself as a gamer. I would not sit here and try to have any argument about which console is the best, cause that is, and always will be a matter of opinion. Hence a winner cannot be decided, if you wanna argue which system is the best seller, you know who. Or which is the strongest graphically, you know that also.

As far as next round is concerned, it is really up in arms. Sony has already declared themselves the winner by stating that they are not worried about when the other guys releases their systems. And they are fixed on blowing us all away technologically. From what I have read in a few magazines so far, it is speculated that Sony may actually do some real work and drop a really powerful system, and we’re not talking xbox big. Nintendo is rumored to be developing two systems simultaneously, who knows what that is about. If it is true… but they are most likely going to bring online play this time, which will be a major factor, or not. On thing is for sure, they are going to have a really fancy trick up their sleeves, for some reason, I expect Voice recognition, motion detection, and something better than analog control. MS is speculated to have dropped the HDD in the Xenon, I highly doubt they will. That shounds downright stupid. They pioneered a standard here. Why drop it? we all know it works. As for tech specs, I don’t know much, but they are using high powered emulators on Apple G5 dual processed Macs to develop Xenon software. I expect them to do it big. Oh Sony is planning a major change on their controller too. Hmmmm… I’m excited. Are you?
                     

[New Era Outlaw]

NO.                    

[ShinSagat]

lol all dis blah blah and i sure cube go still be a buddy console

aka

Xbox and cube
ps2 and cube
or all 3                    

[W1nTry]

Anyone saw on Xplay recently the test they did on all three systems to see which could take teh most lix and keep on ticking. Needless to say teh Gamecube won!!! lol, hit with a sledge, dropped from over ten feet, etc. The PS2 was down and out from the first test. The Xbox the 3rd. Only the GC managed to take all the lix and keep working. Goes to show the hardware is able, just everything else may be lacking. save an except their great name titles. I hope they do better with their nex gen console.. even if it does resemble the flexbox 2.                    

[camrE]

Goes to show the hardware is able, just everything else may be lacking

? huh???

what does that statement really mean??

lacking graphical power??
Couldn't mean that, cause I've seen Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, Baten kaitos, Resident Evil, RE0, RE4

Speed in loading times??
cause more often that not, this is the fastest loading console. I myself have made comparisons on multiplatform titles, and 7 out of 10 times the GCN was first, Xbox close second and PS2 not so far behind.

Audio processing??
May not have DPII but have you heard StarWars Rogue Squadron II??

                     

[W1nTry]

Wouldn't load time, audio processing and the like fall under the hardware capabilities? anyways I will attempt to clarify a bit, i was reffering to lack of more mature game titles, a more mature appearance (as someone said the xbox is huge and ugly), lack of online support. The gamecube is an excellent piece of hardware and does have some really good titles like smash brothers, zelda, but apart from the signature N1ntendo titles the third party support is really lacking. I hope this clears up my previous post.                    

[camrE]

No biggie my man, When you continued from the statement about it being smashed I thought you meant PHYSICAL hardware. The shell, chasis etc. I really think the Industry themselves are perpetuating the 3rd party support dilemna on the GCN. I will not blame it on the lack of online play, because we ALL played XBOX and PS2 games before online support dropped. Now we act like it's all about the "online" jump off. It's stupid really, The blame does start from nintendo. They made themself fall into this position.                      

[justinkoo]

all yuh is nintendo racist or what
,nintendo is the most durable system ,least expensive and a variety of games in every genre                    

[New Era Outlaw]

all yuh is nintendo racist or what
,nintendo is the most durable system ,least expensive and a variety of games in every genre

 

I'd...have to disagree.
With regards to the first statement, you can shoot an X-box and only cause a dent in it. Try that with a Gamecube and it goes bye-bye.

Also, the variety of games for the Gamecube is pretty weak.
PS2 is seeing a LOT more action title-wise than Gamecube, especially when it comes to fighting games, in which case the Gamecube will get the short end of the stick.