I will admit some of the graphics discussion on the boards between PS3 and 360 is silly. I guarantee, you for example, that Gears of War 2 will be the best looking game released next year. I say next year because that is when it will be released on PC (if anyone has the PC version of Gears of War one, compare it at max settings with the 360 version, infinitely superior). If you really really want cutting edge graphics then going for console games is not the way to go. a high end PC will beat 400 dollar consoles all day every day.

That said the reason I care about the ongoing "console war" is because a console is a relatively large investment. Lets say you need a 360 as well as a PS3 (I would say that for high end gaming the PS brand is still the default, since it has all the real exclusives as in not on PC exclusives) to play X game because MS decided it wanted to try to buy the console market. Well a 360 costs 300 dollars, 180 for a better hard drive (marginally better, 120GB is tiny compared to the 320GB PS3 drive you can get for 90 bucks), 100 for a wireless adapter, 200 for 4 battery chargers and 3 controllers, 50 per year for online multiplayer for 4 years, 20 bucks for another HDMI cable and 50 bucks for a decent system splitter that accepts HDMI (moot if you already have a reciever like I do so I won't include it).

However you cut it for a fully functional second system that is equal to the PS3 already owned its going to cost pretty close to 1000 dollars. Now look at your PC. Toss in 1000 dollars into it and that buys 4 more GB of RAM for 100 bucks, a terrabyte HD for 150 bucks, a high end graphics card of your choice for less then 300 bucks, and a fast quad core processor for 450 bucks. If you build yourself as assumed above, that means you can have a system that is pretty close to the cutting edge of graphics and high end mouse and keyboard games instead of wasting the money on a second console that is for all intents and purposes roughly identical (if not somewhat inferior) to the console already owned.

I would not make the same argument about the Wii of course (or past Nintendo systems), since it is not a replication of the PS brand. It has very different games, graphics, controls and a different core audience. Some would argue the Wii is superior or inferior, but it is for sure not redundant with the PS3. No amount of high end gamer PC investment is going to make your PC a Wii like it can make your PC a superior 360.

So what I'm arguing is mainly that it does make sense to have multiple consoles, but not multiple consoles where one is a facsimile of the other. The Xbox entry doesn't make sense because the PS brand already does what the Xbox does, but better. There are almost no xbox games of quality that aren't also out on the PS3, or more importantly, out in a vastly superior fashion on the PC (Mass Effect, Gears of War, Halo 1 and 2 all vastly better on the PC for a multitude of reasons). All MS buying good games and good game companies to work on the Xbox does is needlessly segment the market beween identical hardware making consumers spend money twice needlessly. It doesn't even really make sense for MS which is the strange part. Imagine that instead of releasing the xbox they just became a publisher using their studios like bungee and the MS game studios that make games like age of empires to produce games for the PS systems. Halo 3 would still have sold just as well and made hundreds of millions but they wouldn't be saddled with the expense of launching a continuously failing platform (hardware costs, repair costs, extra staff, ect). MS is more profitable then even big PC makers like dell precisely because they were never involved in hardware. MS would be well served to go back to their software only approach and leave the video game hardware market to companies that do it well, Sony at the high end and Nintendo at the low end (of hardware, not necessarily games). Instead of wasting money on the Xbox maybe they could make vista or whatever their new OS is worth a damn so it doesn't make games run worse then they ever did on XP. The gaming devision minus the Xbox would be a 2 billion profit instead of a 6 billion loss over the last half decade or so.

The pinnacle of video game generations was the PS/N64 gen. There was the N64 for kids and those who wanted casual games like Donkey Kong and Banjo Kazoee and there was the PS for adults who wanted things like metal gear solid, Twisted Metal and FFVII. Both companies made money, both had different approaches and if you wanted a certain kind of game there was only one system you had to buy (unless of course you liked multiple kinds, in which case the max you had to buy was 2, and neither system was really redundant with the other). I can only hope that there is a mix of a PC game recovery and another Xbox system failure to get MS out of the market so it can go back to the superior way it was.

Yes the 360 fanboys can argue that I'm right but it should be MS not Sony that owns the HD market. To that I say boot up vista, only bad things like that result from giving MS a monopoly. The PS systems on the other hand (the last two of which were made with Sony expecting to be the dominant player) were both high quality and well made consumer machines. Sony is more like Apple in that they make quality products whether they're in first of 5th. The Ipods have gotten loads better over the years even though Apple has like 80% market share just like Sony products stay great whether they have the highest share or not.

Can you break that up into smaller chunks?

done, for some reason HTML didn't work right the first time.

Just one thing. The N64 and the PS1 did not have different demographics. That was just a myth people assumed by the ratings of games, not by the people who actually bought them.

The N64 had Mario and Banjo, but the PS1 had Spyro and Crash. The PS1 had adult games, but Goldeneye isn't for kids, and Star Fox may have lacked blood, but it's a hardcore shooter.

Plus I wouldn't say Final Fantasy VII was a game adults mainly played.

nice read microsoft should pull out

    I am not saying there weren't exceptions both ways.  That Conker game (on N64) was the dirtiest game I've ever played short of Leisure Suit Larry and Crash Bandicoot was for the young end of the teen market, but those weren't the main push (especially first party push) for the respective consoles.  Similarly the PS3 has a few games that seem to skew young like Ratchet and Clank (though I love that game and am in my 20s) while the Wii has a handful like Manhunt 2 or Resident Evil 4 that seem to target adults, but that isn't the emphasis for the two systems.  

 Nintendo has an emphasis on kids and casual gamers and have had that emphasis for decades (watch their E3 conference) Remember when only the SNES of Mortal Kombat couldn't have blood or fatalities?   Sony on the other hand has an emphasis on the teen and up market (watch their E3 conference) and has since the PS era.  Some will buy both, I own both for instance (though I play the PS3 a whole lot more), its not that they ONLY offer one type of game, but that each system has a clear market emphasis.  That emphasis makes sense since there are several distinct types of people who buy consoles, the one that doesn't make sense is the MS strategy of releasing PC games for a console  (name a single game for the 360 that isn't better on a PC for instance...maybe Kameo?)

I just would like to mention something. If it wasn't for the 360 you probably wouldn't see as many hardware sales on the HD consoles as you do now. While it won't be too drastic, and the ps3 would probably make up for the sales, there probably would be a great number who would also go to the Wii, or just PC gaming. This means there is far less of a motive to put these 3rd party games on the PS3 and more of one to put them on the Wii, because the wii would probably be well of 50% marketshare, and one of the biggest reasons why big budget games don't go to the Wii are because the 360 and PS3 together usually produce equal to more software sales than the wii alone in terms of 3rd party core games. Without the 360 there would be far less. That means alot of high budget sequels would go to the wii, and sony would probably not even had a motive anymore to lower the price of the ps3 probably causing even less hardware sales for the ps3 and even more for the wii. So I think the 360 is a major benefit to PS3 gamers because if it wasn't around the ps3 probably would have much less 3rd party support than it does now. I do agree with you though, but I wanted to put the situation more into a ps3 gamers perspective on what would happen if microsoft wasn't in the market or if the console was alot different from the ps3 where direct ports on both consoles wouldn't work. It would benefit people who prefer the Wii though like me.

There was no Xbox when the PS2 came out and the PS2 was just as much a jump over the PS1 and dreamcast (the 2nd generations 360) as the PS3 was over the PS2. Sony would make a high end console regardless, its what they do as a company, push the envelope



As to how the market would shake out, it would almost certainly consolidate a lot of the one or the other sales into the PS brand and the PS would be slightly behind the Wii but it would be close (and the PS3 would sell more software). There are two rather large markets out there, one for cutting edge high end gaming and one for older tech casual gaming. The Wii has done very well in the second one (though the PS2 is still holding its own) while the first one has been split between the PS3 and 360 so that neither are doing that well. It wouldn't be straight out adding up the PS3 and 360 numbers since many own both, but it would be more like 25 million PS3s worldwide vs 30 million Wiis, maybe more PS3s since all the JRPGs would have been on the PS3 which Japanese would actually buy (unlike the 360 which is a lost cause in Japan unless they can talk Nintendo into buying the brand).



Some think casual gaming is the future, I think its just that the casual market is consolidated while the HD market is needlessly fragmented. We all look at the Wii games and say oh they're number one! Well add up the PS3 and 360 numbers for a lot of games and they dwarf the sales of any casual Wii game (COD4, GTA4 ect). If there was only one HD console it would be very competitive with the Wii, it would be about 4 DS games, 2-3 Wii games and 3-4 PS3 games most weeks instead of almost only Wii and DS games outside of release weeks for the other consoles big games.<br> <br>

VERY few 360 and PS3 gamers would go exclusive to the Wii if the other HD console didn't exist.  At most you'd have a few who would get a PS3 and Wii instead of PS3 and 360.   That's like saying if the maker of a videophile's LCD TV didn't make TVs anymore they'd go to the 999 Vizio TV at walmart, probably not.  When the Saturn died all the Saturn people didn't go to the N64, they went to the PS1 (or dreamcast followed by PS2).  While some might go PC exclusive if the 360 didn't exist, I would argue people who like PC games and have a good PC don't need a 360 to begin with, on the other hand there are a ton of PS3 games that are never released for the PC (and wouldn't even be better on it, Ratchet and Clank, Little Big Planet, the PSN games, Uncharted, Heavenly Sword and many more are almost certainly better on a console)

It does matter that Microsoft is here with the 360 who knows what Sony may have made when there wasn't a strong machine like the 360.. Maybe the PS3 wouldn't had bluray or a harddrive.. We all know the PS3 had to beat the specs of the Xbox360.. If it where up to Sony this generation would have started in 2008.. So it does matter that there are two consoles..

@Impulsivity, I think you should look at the DS vs PSP. The ds is what you would call the low end system that inovated, and in its early years 3rd party games mostly targeted non gamers and casuals. The psp is what you would consider a high end system that gave you a console like experience. Now the PSP started off with better 3rd party support, and alot more games, yet sales still didn't match that of the DS, because many Die hard nintendo fans, and Casual/ Non gamers bought the ds. After the psp kept failing to sell software at the level third parties wanted it to, developers looked toward the DS. Once the DS started to sell software for the Casual, Non Gamer, and Core markets it got/gets almost all of the support while the PSP gets many droughts. Now if it was only the Wii and PS3 this situation would have happened by now. The ps3 would probably keep its high price, and alot of the 360 owners would have just gotten a high end PC, or just went with the Ps3 or Wii( Nintendo Core TItles seem very appealing). The Nintendo Core would have stayed with the Wii, and the Casual/Non gamers would have went to the Wii. The ps3 would most likely not come anywhere close in terms of hardware or software, and would probably be in a similar situation to that the PSP was in. It would get alot of support in the 1st year or 2, but due to low sales and high development costs 3rd party developers would probably went to the Wii with alot of their 3rd party support.  I woudl think it would be more like Wii at 35 mln, Ps3 at 23mln if the 360 wasn't present.  So I think the 360 being in the market actually helps PS3 gamers more than hinders them. It does hurt fanboys who can't brag about exclusives though.