War is over (Project Cafe to define the Next-gen ?)

[HappySqurriel]

libellule said:

HappySqurriel said:

Slimebeast said:

Will consumers pick a slightly more powerful Cafe for $300 almost without games or will they choose PS3 and 360 for $250 that have strong online features and hundreds of new and classic games to choose from?

It really depends ... If the only advantage of the Cafe is more processing power probably not, but if there are other improvements it is highly likely that they would. And this is the reason why I believe it is foolish to focus too heavily on processing power as a selling point.

We know too little about what Nintendo is doing to really know how effective they will be. Potentially, Nintendo's focus over the past 5 years could have been to create disruptive services rather than disruptive hardware. While people often don't see the flaws in XBox Live or the Playstation Network, services like single-disc online multiplayer (effectively allowing you to invite friends to play a game only you have bought) or seemless integration with facebook or youtube could have a significant impact on how people see and play videogames.

Hypothetically speaking, if Nintendo created an integrated social gaming platform and they hit a certain sales threshold (even if Sony and Microsoft copy or extend all of the features) Nintendo could become the default choice because everyone's friends already own the Nintendo system; and the value is in connecting with friends not in the hardware.

hum,dont u think social network are already dominated by facebook/twitter and that they are already accessible from everywhere (from pc to phone)

There are countless devices which allow you access to facebook, with almost no services that interact with it directly ...

When you can view someone's "gamerscore" or game recommendations, chat with them while playing a game, invite them to play with you, and countless other potential interactions I can’t think of at the moment I will say that facebook has been integrated with a videogame console.

The broader point was, who says that "disruption" has to be driven by disruptive hardware; why can't the services provided by the console be disruptive?

There are lots of questions that you can ask about the conventions of videogame consoles ...

Why can't you play with your videogame system while someone is watching TV? Why can't your videogame system be used to augment your TV watching experience?

Why are most videogames implicitly competitive? Why can't they be co-operative, communication based or creative? Why can't videogames be educational or inspirational?

Why aren't videogames more social? Why is playing games by yourself (or potentially with people you've never met) an "ideal" experience?

 

... I could go on and on, but I don't get the feeling that you would see my point that a videogame system is more than the CPU and GPU that it contains; and people may favour a system with little regard for what its theoritical processing power is or how that compares to other systems on the market.