Main weakness of Sony, MS and Nintendo..in your opinion.

[Mr Khan]

Strike24 said:

They've been sticking to those guns because it's a common perception that XBL is a better online experience than PSN is. Regardless of personal taste, this is the general perception at the moment.

In the US especially, we are willing to pay more for a product based off these perceptions and because of strong brand names, as well as what the general populations (especially their friends or other close individuals) own. Telling me that Microsoft isn't a strong brand at this point is a blatant lie. Maybe even more than Sony is at this point in the gaming industry. It's kind of funny, considering if both systems came out at the same time for the same price with more of the same features we wouldn't be having these conversations, considering Sony was the name to beat with the PS2, and they screwed up with how they went around releasing the PS3. However, that's a point that cannot be fixed or corrected. Sony lost a lot of consumers when they pulled this off.

However, it will be interesting to see if it changes when PSN starts offering a premium online pack for a price. I'd like to see the response, if any, that Microsoft pulls off.

On topic:

Microsoft: A little too focused on stealing third party games at the moment, knowing that most of their third party games tend to sell better than their PS3 counterparts, while trying to keep everything competative rather on dealing with their own issues. However, the trend of 360 games outselling the PS3 in third party might change up in the future, so while they do have a few strong first party games, they need to make more francises that they can depend on past Halo and Mass Effect (and to a lesser extent, Splinter Cell) in the future generations to insure longevity. They are incredibly loose with their money in the attempts to divert consumers at this point, which is something their first party games should be doing, as well as increasing the realiability of their system and online community which is the console's selling point. Money can be allocated in better places than where they are currently going.

Sony: Way too interested in talking a big game at the moment, trying to put down other consoles for their faults while only slowly working on fixing their own. Tend to be very stingy with money, and their system is still very rough to dev for. They really released the blu ray way too early for the time, kind of throwing developers into the fire when they tried to take advantage of Sony's fanbase. Only problem with Sony's PS2 is that there was a lot of different genres with a lot of different games, and that the audience's preferences were all over the place, and it carries on to the PS3. The difference is that the genres aren't as defined as they were on the PS2, so the audience is very skeptical, resulting in lower  sales. While Sony seems to have a more loyal fanbase, it also seems smaller than Microsoft's large casual fanbase. This will keep going strong in the US as long as it remains casual considering unlike in Europe and Japan who take games seriously, in the US gaming is more of a hobby before anything else. No amount of advertising or pushing will change that notion here until the culture changes. I also notice a lot of people coming in my store and asking about games that had a co-op option to play split screen on the PS3, and the results seem to be incredibly lacking, as the PS3 seems to be more of a loner system rather than the more casual systems of the Xbox and especially the Wii.

Nintendo: Will always make money off whatever first party games they make, considering how strong the brand name is for Nintendo worldwide (They started as a freaking card company, for crying out loud). Right now, they are riding on the wave that is the casual gamer aspect. Games that are easy and simple for any generation to play, while being simplistic and easy to do. However, their third party is horrendous. There's little support from the fanbase for these games, and so Nintendo is focusing on the casual gamers, which is a fad at best which is currently seem to be dying down. The actual gamers are the ones who will keep coming back and buying your games, so while games like Link and Mario will never die off, third party developers aren't making any money off the system, turning them off for developing for a lost cause. With the inclusion of Natal and the Arc, it's going to be even tougher for Nintendo to influence people now to buy their system, considering the only game many gamers are still looking forward to now is Metroid. I wouldn't be surprised to see this console dropping in price before the other two consoles.

...In before "TL:DR"

You're overestimating the threat of Natal and Arc handily. This concept that Natal and Arc, simply by being released, will damage Nintendo is fallacious because it presumes that customers *want* to buy PS3 and 360, but don't because of the lack of motion controls. Problems on those platforms that are turning off the mainstream are far more endemic than a lack of motion controls, and it still doesn't look like either platform holder is moving to fix those problems.