I wish we could give kudos or some sort of brownie points to people - Stormprophet earned about 500 with his post. EA's finances are half what they were. Why? GENERATIONAL CHANGE. It happens every 5 years. Profits go down for most/all companies, then they go back to a normal amount. EA IS taking risks by going multi-plat, as they are alienating whatever their userbase is for a given system when they throw it multi-plat. EA is also taking risks by buying smaller publishers left and right...Not that I agree with that. The Wii is pushing innovation with controls. The PS3/360 are pushing games by making the games smarter and more realilistic. Some can complain that graphics don't add to immersion. The most immersed I've ever been in a game is Gears of War on Co-OP. That'd never happen on Wii. The Wii has it's own innovations - you can't take away from it. However, to say that it's the only one innovating is very asinine. Aside from graphics, there have been huge differences in gaming from the PS1 to PS3 and 360. Enemies are alot more "real" - they think much better. There are more activities going on in every game. 20 years ago, an average RPG like Final Fantasy might take 20-30 hours to beat. Oblivion takes that same amount of time for one quest line. People actually TALK, LISTEN and READ adding in immersion. We deal with far more realilistic people in gaming due to computational improvements. Some things like Radiant AI, Havok Physics and such can't entirely be utilized on Wii and older consoles because of the power needed to actually use them. To me, walking through a photo-realilistic town, seeing NPCs talk to each other, work, play, read, and have random encounters not scripted as much as other games is a huge boon to what I feel a game needs to have. Example: Morrowind vs. Oblivion (a generational difference). Aside from graphics and the obvious gameplay differences, we have 50+hrs of actual spoken dialogue. We have radiant AI which makes people work according to real-life patterns. It has weather paterns. I don't walk around the entire game in just springtime. I can be in the middle of an area, and have a storm start up randomly and see trees start being blown in the wind, and the game "feels" different. I can goto nighttime, and see a torch light 500ft off in the distance. I can hear the sounds of the world around me, and interacting with me. In Morrowind I had none of that. Those changes weren't entirely based off a controller, or just entirely more development time - much of it could only be done with extra DVD space, CPU power, and GPU power. Yes, the Wii offers its own innovations to gameplay, but I'd rather play a game with a clunky controller actually interacting with people that look, talk, act and seem real versus a game with merely a "realilistic" control option. Both would be best, but for now, I'll take my gigaflops on gigaflops. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy games that are old and 8-16bit, but I also understand and enjoy progress in gaming, even if it's a bigger CPU. Also, in rebuttal to Stormprophet about one thing - I disagree a PS2 sale means a PS3 sale. A SNES sale didn't make a N64 didn't make a GC sale, we all know that. Same goes for Genesis/Saturn/DC. You'll always have a hardcore fanbase that grows with a platform and it's longevity. However, the vast majority of gamers really aren't going to care if your platforms name starts with an W, X, or S. Ironically, all 3 of those are in a direct line on a QWERTY keyboard. Also, to look at reviews of games - which system, of the 3 has the highest % ranking(s) for their systems that were actually made for the systems? Answer: 360. Next answer: PS3 Last answer: Wii Maybe sooner or later the people will see the poor review scores and wise up. Personally, I hate the idea of always having to use that stupid Wii controller for everything, if thats the way gaming go. Im sure its a nice great thing, but I couldn't stand it for 100% of every game I would play in life. Joysticks aren't for every game, but are fantastic for flight sims. Mouses are great for RPGs and Simulation gaming and RTS'es, Keyboards are great for FPS's, controllers are great for platform and action games, Wiimotes will be great for sports and other games requiring that sort of input. However, it's asinine to assume that it'll be the only thing left after the dust settles.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
